Demand Planner

About the role

The Demand Planner is the internal voice of the customer and the key coordinator between sales and supply to deliver the Right Product, the Right Price, at the Right Time to consistently meet our customers’ expectations. This position leads and manages the order and demand planning process, collaborating with the Sales, Operations, and Marketing teams to ensure a positive customer experience and outcome.

Responsibilities

• Build and maintain strong relationships with marketing, sales, and other functional teams and utilize those relationships to enhance business performance.
• Lead and support the Demand Planning team in the creation and maintenance of monthly/weekly, statistical + adjusted plans across all product categories.
• Develop monthly/weekly forecasts for product(s)/customer(s)/channel(s).
• Lead/support generation of demand side inputs of the annual planning process.
• Partner with the business unit supply planning team to assure forecasts can be translated into actionable supply chain plans that optimize inventory + customer service (key assumptions, risks, and opportunities to that forecast).
• Understand and analyze key business drivers (point-of-sale data, market share, product data, inventory requirements, competitive activity) and drive improvement in the forecasting process with the demand team.
• Work closely with sales and category management to understand the relationship between trade spending and volume.
• Manage root cause process and lead plans to drive continuous improvement in forecast accuracy.
• Ensure best practices related to monthly S&OP and weekly demand planning are being followed throughout the planning process and drive continuous improvements in the S&OP process.

Customer Service Accountabilities

• Assist and provide daily direction and communication to coaches and customer service representatives to ensure team service levels, productivity, quality assurance, and revenue goals are aligned and achieved.
• Maintain a positive, can-do attitude that creates strong team morale and spirit.
• Articulate clear individual/team objectives and monitor process, progress, and results.
• Share wins and successes to recognize, reward, and motivate performance.
• Determine processes and necessary actions to deliver results.
• Always look to find ways to improve, drive synergies, and simplify complex processes.
• Ensure that team members adhere to published policies, procedures, and guidelines.
• Leverage data and resources to identify individual performance gaps and develop and track performance improvement action plans.
• Foster open dialogue through organized and regular bi-weekly team meetings and individual 1:1 meetings.
• Assist and manage quality assurance disputes in accordance with established guidelines and protocols.
• Participate in and meaningfully contribute to quality assurance calibrations.
• Update monthly scorecard templates and review scorecards for accuracy.
• Conduct root cause analysis of file reworks, track trends by team member to identify trends and drive accountability and improvement.
• Responsible for weekly timesheet approvals, reconciliation of aux logs with CMS reports, identify violations, and implement corrective actions.
• Prepare and conduct individual mid-year and year-end performance appraisals.
• Provide back-up support for escalated consumer issues.
• Proactively partner with WFO to early release resources when excess capacity exists.

Requirements

• Bachelor's Degree in business, statistics, mathematics, economics, supply chain management, or similar field required.
• At least 3 years’ experience in business planning/supply chain/demand planning or related field.
• Strong comprehension of Omni-Channel retail – from WHS to Ecomm to own retail.
• Deep understanding of forecasting analytics and statistical modeling methodologies.
• Ability to effectively present complex data at all levels both internally and externally.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Demonstrated ability to develop strong partnerships across all functions.
• Excellent Microsoft Office (Excel) applications experience required.
• Experience working with integrated ERP systems (SAP APO/DP) and BW preferred.
• Experience with continual process improvement methods.
• Experience in industry or in a CPG environment is preferred.

Skills

• Planning
• Logistics Management
• Customer Focus
• Commercial Awareness
• Business Process Application