Planning and Allocation Mgr

About the role

A World-Class Team BJ’s Wholesale Club is powered by more than 30,000 team members who make a real impact every day. Whether you're stocking shelves, solving problems or shaping strategy, your work helps families save on what matters most. We’re a team built on purpose and opportunity. Join us and be part of something meaningful.

The Planning & Allocation Manager is aligned with Merchandising DMM and/or Category Director and is primarily responsible for managing all Planning & Allocation activities across the Category Merchant’s product assortments. The Planning & Allocation Manager leads a team of Merchandise Planners and Allocation Analysts who work to ensure the overall Member experience by overseeing that the right amount of product flows to the right Clubs at the right time to maximize sales and minimize inventory investment.

Responsibilities

• Develop annual bottom-up merchandise plans that deliver company sales, margin, and inventory goals.
• Lead all financial forecasting within categories using data-driven analytics, trend insights, and business intelligence to project future results.
• Partners with cross-functional team on inputs to forecast and shares output with team to drive alignment.
• Understands implications of trend to each metric and can guide team on actions to improve results.
• Lead and manage end-to-end omni channel inventory and replenishment/allocation processes.
• Replenishment, allocation, and inventory target strategies to drive high level of in-stock.
• Joint business planning strategies with key vendors to support Divisional strategic goals.
• Strategies to support holiday-specific plans, including product lifecycle management, maximizing sales and minimizing inventory liability through aligned exit strategies that tie to financial targets.
• Leverage data-driven analytics and industry intelligence to continuously evaluate health metrics and improve key KPI’s through root-cause analysis, continuous improvement of processes and system improvements.
• Clearly and concisely communicate business performance to business leads and cross functional partners.
• Coach and develop a team of Merchandise Planners and Allocation Analysts. This includes training, career development and performance management.
• Foster a strong customer service environment to improve efficiencies for the DC network and Clubs.
• Develop new and enhanced business processes to drive the efficiency of your team.
• Collaborate with vendor partners to create an efficient supply chain.
• Monitor vendor performance to improve reliability.
• For General Merchandise Only: Pre-season: collaborate with merchants in developing tailored product assortment inventory needs that support sales trends, promotional calendar and customer preference in each store including assortment frameworks, sku productivity, flow plans, ideal depth.
• In Season: lead milestone meetings by providing data driven insights on sales/inventory levels that result in actions to support the business: weekly team meetings, OTB, financial forecasts.
• End of Life: ensure exit strategies are assigned and executed.
• Lead and manage end-to-end allocation process.
• Optimize inventory flow timing across all channels.
• Develop allocation processes across the product life cycle that ladder up to retail merchandise sales and inventory plans.
• Understand store profiles/tiers and build assortment allocation strategies with merchandising.
• Adjust allocation strategies in-season where needed and provide appropriate and timely direction