Category Planning Manager at Unilever

Main Purpose of the Job

Manage the Supply Base to ensure the availability of finished product to support the forecasted customer demand requirements and new product development plans, while working against customer service level and inventory management objectives in the relevant categories.

Job Summary

• Review the monthly demand planning data in preparation of a top-level finished goods plan to drive factory planning & scheduling, material sourcing and imported FG planning.
• Through the Central Sourcing Team, ensure that the necessary capacity and capability exists in the supply base to deliver upon the customer demands.
• Ensure that the forecasted demand is communicated to all relevant factories/ suppliers on a regular basis to ensure product availability both for Finished goods and materials to avoid supply disruptions at customer and factory level
• Position materials, prepare product structures and ensure accurate coding is in place prior to new product introduction
• Communicate supply issues and available to promise information to Order Management and Sales & Marketing Functions.
• Manage materials suppliers to ensure consistent supply of goods through monthly forecast submission, supplier payments tracking, quality issues tracking and any matters that may impact supply.
• Ensure with help of procurement contracts are in place and resilience suppliers are in place for all key materials.
• Work closely with the respective Brand Teams to ensure sound planning and sourcing to manage all product requirements and deliver the relevant sales and promotional plans.
• Work closely with the Marketing, Sales and SC teams for any new product introductions as per agreed timelines.
• Deliver on SC KPI’s as per agreed targets e.g. Dispatch Rate (DR), CCFOT (Customer Case Fill Rate), Forecast accuracy, Forecast Bias, Working Capital, Safety etc.
• Ensure system updates /projects in conjunction with Regional teams like SAP are reviewed on a regular basis to drive effective and efficiently.
• Provide leadership, coaching, development, and training plans for all direct reports assigned to you.
• Develop and maintain target inventory levels on a bi -annual basis at least for all Finished Goods, Raw and PACK materials ensure that they are adhered to, by the respective planners.
• Amend the target stocks where necessary to reflect seasonal requirements and ABC analysis Identify and maintain stocking strategies ensuring that target inventory levels for the relevant SKU’s are maintained in SAP.
• Ensure collaboration with all internal stakeholders e.g. Logistics, Warehousing, Quality, Factory, Finance, Sales and Marketing to deliver on business objectives and drive continuous improvement across the category.
• Maintain good working relationship with external stakeholders e.g. Suppliers, Government bodies etc. to ensure business objectives are achieved.
• Follow, review, develop, approve, and implement policies and procedures which lead to optimization of planning process, reduction of stock value, increase of stock turnover ratio, make decision undertaking process in the own area of responsibility accurate and efficient

Key Requirements

• 5-7 years End to End supply chain experience in an FMCG set up particularly in planning (Demand, Materials and Production)
• 5 years’ experience in team management.
• Experience in Inventory management
• Experience SAP (APO, SNP, MRP ,BW)
• Bachelor’s Degree in B-Com, Business related course or Engineering
• Advanced MS Office Excel, Presentation, Projects
• APICS accreditation an added advantage
• Female candidates encouraged to apply