Strategic Demand Planner

Purpose Statement

The role of the Strategic Demand Planner is to collaborate with customers, sales, and marketing to gather insights and improve the baseline forecast. During the Forecasting process, this person is responsible for understanding customer demand, new business, promotions, product shelf-life status, and end-to-end order lifecycle.  In the process, the Strategic Demand Planner  evaluates quality and validity of cross-functional and marketplace inputs in the forecasting process to ensure continuous improvement in the demand plan accuracy, cycle over cycle. The Strategic Demand Planner will use a blend of quantitative data analysis and market intelligence to predict sales trends to improve accuracy. 

• This position can be worked remotely*. Flexible daytime hours Mon-Fri.
• *Buffalo, NY area residents are required to work flexible daytime hours, working from home Mon & Fri, and work onsite Tues-Thurs at world headquarters. 
• Preference will be given to candidates in the eastern and central time zones.

Key Accountabilities and Outcomes

•    Collaborate with sales and marketing to improve baseline 24-month forecast and demand plan at multiple levels of aggregation for multiple time horizons (operational and strategic).

•    Drive supply chain value profiling collaboration with Division Leaders, CBU Leaders, to improve forecast.  Focus will be on top misses and new business

o    Deep dive on selective customer demand and their priorities
o    Customer order forecast for RICH’S distribution centers
o    Share past fill rate performance and forecast accuracy. 
o    Challenge salesforce opportunities and ensure assumptions are documented.
o    Identify opportunities for sharing insights and information to drive accuracy and stability in demand signal.

•    Evaluate accuracy and bias of forecasts generated by demand planning tools and cross-functional forecasts provided by sales managers, marketing managers, customers, and other stakeholders to determine the forecast value add (FVA) 
•    Coordinate cross-functional activities during IBP pre-meetings to reconcile significant variances between system generated forecast and functional forecasts and refine the demand plan to reflect updated sales and marketing assumptions.
•    Support sales managers and marketing managers in initial financial target setting and creating scenarios to address main gaps between the demand plan and annual operating plan on an ongoing basis.
•    Participate in Demand Review meetings of IBP to present analysis and scenarios to meet operational and financial KPI’s.  
•    Coordinate cross-functional activities to reconcile significant variances between system generated forecast and functional forecasts and refine the demand plan to reflect updated sales and marketing assumptions or trends.
•    Participate in Supply Review meetings to understand demand fulfillment risks, understand fulfillment options and provide guidance on demand probability.
•    Participate and function within customer service and logistics TPM Process
•    Prepare and release the consensus demand plan monthly to support the inventory planning, rough cut capacity planning and decision-making under the IBP process. 
•    Release the consensus demand plan daily, to support the tactical inventory and supply plan generation for the short-term 
•    Evaluate month over month demand changes for the next 24 months before month end locks, work with ESO and ICPL to understanding difference in trends and new business additions.   Gain alignment with ICPL before finance locks the number. 

Knowledge, Skills, and Experience

• Bachelor’s degree required and a minimum of 3-5 years of experience
• Strong communication skills, with a proven ability to understand key concepts and communicate with business stakeholders
• Ability to drive action and influence decision making at all levels of the organization
• Strong understanding of Sales and Operations Planning 
• Strong understanding of Blue Yonder Demand 
• Strong organizational skills, as well as the ability to perform under pressure and manage multiple priorities with competing demands
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills
• Proficiency in process improvement
• Ability to work within high-performing teams in highly collaborative environments
• Quantitative and qualitative data analysis, including business process metrics and measures linking to business KPIs
• Self-starter who is organized, resourceful and motivated
• Diagnose problems with standard work product and work to solution

Business Acumen (Activity - Proficiency Level)
Understanding of demand influencers for categories and customers - Proficient 
Understanding of demand planning performance KPIs  - Expert 
Understanding of impact of demand planning KPIs on organizational and cross-functional KPIs and vice-versa - Expert 
 
Soft Skills (Activity - Proficiency Level)
Negotiation - Proficient 
Decision-making - Proficient 
Communications - Proficient 
Presentation / Storytelling - Proficient 
 
Technical / Analytical Skills (Activity - Proficiency Level)
Knowledge of BY LDE, BY Demand and D360 capabilities - Proficient 
Knowledge of forecasting algorithms and parameters - Proficient 
Data analytics - Proficient 
Problem solving - Expert 
Scenario planning - Expert 
Data driven Insight generation - Proficient 

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