Demand Planner at Corporate Staffing

Key Responsibilities

Demand Planning

• Support the Annual business planning and monthly forecasting process by driving volume and value forecasting
• Lead the demand review and forecast alignment meetings.
• Support the Commercial Team and Commercial Analyst to ensure the rolling 18 months sales forecasting discipline is understood and adhered to.
• Collaborate with the Commercial Analyst and Commercial Team to challenge trends and capture market intelligence and understand demand forecast drivers during pre-demand and final demand review meetings.
• Ensure that the business receives an 18-month consensus demand plan (sales forecast) approved by the Commercial/Sales or Managing Director.
• Collaborate with the Commercial Analyst to review historical sales trends, research demand drivers, and evaluate forecast results to support a collaborative and consensus approach with the Sales,
• Marketing, and Finance teams, to obtain and ensure that current and accurate information is used in forecast planning.
• Plan monthly departmental alignments and make recommendations to improve the sales forecast.
• Obtain sales out forecasts to support forecasts and demand planning and to recommend stock planning parameters based on sales out forecasts per customer.
• Closely coordinate and communicate Customer action plans with Supply Planning.
• Provide input into the Supply Planning operations in developing inventory strategies on existing items, new products, and product phase-outs.
• Constantly engage with stakeholders to ensure alignment in lead times, inventory days, and inventory aging.

Data Management

• Create and maintain the appropriate master data in the Planning systems in use, minimizing errors, and avoiding duplication and obsolescence. i.e. Anaplan
• Create statistical forecasts to gather, analyze, validate data and execute statistical modeling software
• Review the results of the statistical forecast model and apply error analysis techniques to improve forecasting; summarize and aggregate statistical forecasts. Refine the forecast model to reflect updated Sales and Marketing assumptions
• Maintain the demand planning system and software to input and modify data and ensure the correctness of product hierarchy
• Monitor trends in forecast error – Identify relevant market-related data and competitive intelligence
• Drive fast, appropriate actions to minimize the impact of deviations from the Demand Plan and communicate these actions to stakeholders.
• Consistently improve the Demand Plan Accuracy (DPA accuracy level and variability) using the Forecast Value Added (FVA) concept and drive out systematic forecast bias through detailed analyses of past performance.
• Track errors using DP Reason Codes and maintain an efficient Learning Log.
• Provide input to volume planning (Latest Estimates / annual process) and achieve consensus with the business side and the demand chain

Continuous Improvement

• Maintain Monthly, Quarterly, and ad hoc reporting on Operations KPI’s internally and to the Regional Office or EMEA HQ
• Propose improvement initiatives based on KPI’s reports and sales trends
• Lead and manage the end-to-end process for New Product Introductions
• Lead and manage ad hoc projects from start to end

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Supply Chain, Business Management, Statistics, or another relevant field.
• A graduate diploma (CIPS) or any other national higher diploma in Supply Chain or Logistics is a plus.
• Min 5 years of work experience as a Demand Planner or similar role.
• Demonstrated knowledge of demand planning philosophies and processes as well as a proven track record.
• Advanced knowledge of Microsoft Excel to analyze demand planning and forecasting.
• Excellent IT skills and previous experience with an ERP system.
• Excellent communication and people skills.
• Sufficient knowledge of warehousing and distribution.
• A strong business perspective.
• A passion for working with customers, internally and externally.
• A strong desire to develop trust and long-term relationships.
• A strong desire to strive for service improvements and be proactive and responsive to customer demands.
• Ability to impact and influence others to work cross-functionally and externally to get commitment to ideas, and actions and deliver results.