Automation Specialist

Company description

IKEA Group brings together three core businesses: Retail Concept, Range and Supply. Together we work constantly to improve the IKEA offer and make it more accessible for the many people. IKEA Supply is responsible for securing that the product offer is produced and delivered to our customers. We lead the supply agenda across many functions and work together with all business areas, different business units, but also retail markets to secure customer availability in all markets and sales channels at lowest total cost.

Job description

As the Automation Specialist, you will lead the demand area for Digital Automation and help the organization turn business needs and ideas into a qualified, prioritized and value-driven automation pipeline. You will own and continuously improve the intake process, guide initiatives from early exploration toward development readiness, and ensure that the right stakeholders are involved at the right time.

You will work closely with business, process, product and technology stakeholders to clarify needs, challenge assumptions, shape expected outcomes and create transparency around priorities, progress and value. You will also build automation awareness, strengthen adoption and help scale the automation agenda across the organization.

More specifically, in this role you will (be):

• Lead and continuously improve the end-to-end automation demand and intake process.
• Create awareness of Digital Automation capabilities and proactively engage the organization to identify relevant opportunities.
• Partner with stakeholders to understand business needs, process challenges, expected outcomes and value potential.
• Assess and qualify ideas based on strategic fit, business value, feasibility, readiness, dependencies and risks.
• Facilitate discovery and prioritization workshops, translating needs into clear problem statements, requirements, user stories and acceptance criteria.
• Guide automation ideas and initiatives from initial exploration to development readiness, ensuring clear scope, ownership and agreed next steps.
• Govern and communicate the automation pipeline, including priorities, status, risks, decisions and expected or realized value.
• Build alignment across business, process, product and technology stakeholders, and support informed decision-making.
• Drive adoption and value realization by ensuring solutions are intuitive, relevant and aligned with user needs and ways of working.
• Act as an ambassador for Digital Automation, sharing knowledge, success stories and reusable approaches to scale the automation agenda.

About you

IKEA are on the journey to transform our digital capabilities, bringing core business processes, people, data & technology together as an enabler for IKEA to become an even better home furnishing company in the future. On this journey we’re doing some amazing things; therefore, we need some amazing people – this position is not an exception.

To be successful in this role, we expect you to have:

Experience:

• Minimum 7 years of professional experience in business analysis, demand management, digital transformation, or a related field.
• Experience leading intake, discovery, qualification and prioritization of digital or automation initiatives.
• Experience moving ideas from early exploration into a clear, development-ready scope.
• Experience facilitating workshops and translating business needs into requirements, user stories and acceptance criteria.
• Experience influencing stakeholders, building alignment and driving change in a large, matrixed organization.
• Experience communicating pipeline status, delivery progress, risks and business value to different audiences.
• Experience supporting adoption, awareness and competence-building activities.

Knowledge & Motivation:

• Strong understanding of the automation initiative lifecycle, including intake, qualification, prioritisation, portfolio governance, delivery tracking and value realisation.
• Good knowledge of business analysis, process mapping, requirements management and value assessment.
• Understanding of user-centred design, usability, accessibility and how people interact with automation solutions.
• Curiosity and willingness to understand stakeholder needs, challenge assumptions and connect perspectives across functions.
• A value-driven and outcome-focused mindset, with the ability to balance ambition, feasibility and organisational readiness.
• Passion for creating simple and scalable ways of working that help the organisation adopt automation effectively.
• A collaborative, proactive and structured approach, with strong ownership and accountability for results.

Capabilities:

• Assess and qualify automation opportunities based on business need, feasibility, expected outcomes and value potential.
• Facilitate stakeholder workshops and translate business needs into clear requirements and actionable next steps.
• Build and maintain a transparent, prioritised automation pipeline.
• Connect business stakeholders with relevant automation, process, product and technology expertise.
• Communicate complex topics clearly and adapt the message to operational, technical and senior stakeholder audiences.
• Create engagement and awareness through compelling storytelling, practical examples and knowledge sharing.
• Follow up expected and realised value, and use insights to improve demand shaping and portfolio decisions.

This role reports to the Automation Development Manager in D&T SCD.

Please note that we have a preferred candidate for this position, while we encourage all candidates holding a similar ambition and finding the role interesting to apply. Please also note that we do only handle applications in English and no applications coming in by email. We look forward to receiving your application at the latest 2 Oct. 2026.

You might have some questions about the recruitment process, and we are more than happy to answer those! Feel free to connect with the People & Culture Specialist Katie Pettersson at katie.pettersson2@inter.ikea.com.