The Merchandise Planner will be responsible for leading and supporting the day-to-day needs for the financial, demand and inventory planning organization of performance for our channels (brick & mortar).
- Lead the Financial, Demand & Inventory Planning for stores channels and ensure collaboration with cross-functional teams to manage demand plans on a continuous basis and maintain various forecasts that align with the strategies and objectives of the business over a rolling horizon.
- Provide overall leadership on the Demand Plan that drives the Planning process.
- Develop initial and replenishment allocation strategies to support both new and existing Shops, maximizing inventory and sell thru
- Stakeholder engagement and interpersonal skills: ability to derive and communicate high-level insights from data and successfully drive consensus.
- Leads key cross functional demand planning collaboration meetings with the commercial partners with a data driven, fact-based approach to communicate key forecast drivers to manage a consensus forecast.
- Communicate ideas concisely to a wide variety of stakeholders for purposes ranging from informative to need for financial approval from executives.
- Develop cross-functional partnerships to understand the impact of key growth and demand drivers.
- Engages team to examine current practices and encourages creative thinking about how things could be more effective and efficient.
- Asserts own ideas and persuades others in a clear, confident, and composed manner. Tailors message for the audience and can gain support and commitment from others.
Requirements
- 5 years of Merchandise Planning, Demand forecasting or Inventory management experience
- Direct interaction with supply chain & demonstrated understanding of planning to supply process.
Nice to Have
- Systems agility- planning systems experience in NSPB or similar
- Certifications in demand and/or supply planning a plus
- Brick and mortar retail experience with successful cross functional partnership with sales leadership.
- Bachelor’s degree: Finance, Operations, Retail Management or Business Management preferred (or equivalent work experience)