Demand Planner

MRD Recruitment is delighted to be recruiting a Demand Planner on behalf of our Retail and E-commerce client. My client is a national leader in their respective field. The Demand Planner will work a hybrid working model, based between home and Glasgow, Scotland. The Demand Planner will report into the Merchandising Manager, who is seeking an experienced and self-motivated Demand Planner to join their dynamic team.

The successful Demand Planner will have hands-on attention to detail and be comfortable working with large amounts of data. This will suit someone who has retail or B2C experience and is keen to be part of a growing successful business.

Key Responsibilities:

• Key Line stock forecasting for online hubs, ensuring the key SKUs are never out of stock.
• Work collaboratively with stock management and finance on budgets, stock value and stock turn, whilst maintaining flexibility to maximise growth.
• Work with the warehouse manager to manage the intake of stock across online hubs, with a view of capacity and operational efficiencies.
• Make suggestions on improvements on the stock flow and ordering process to maximise availability, efficiency and ensure we have the right stock, at the right time, in the right place.
• Ensuring availability of live data to make informed trading decisions to proactively identify opportunities and risks at category and line level from a stock perspective.
• Work in-line with the critical path to plan stock levels for promotional SKUs across the business.
• Collaborate with wider team to roll out successful implementation of promotions using data driven insights to ensure profitability.
• Work directly with our suppliers to give a forecast of the uplift in demand to ensure they can increase production so promotional SKUs are in stock at the right time.
• Carry out monthly lessons learnt with the wider team, providing feedback and insights into stock turn and performance.
• Work closely with the teams to ensure demand plans are reflective of current market trends and commercial opportunities.
• Work with stores and hubs to maximise bulk buying opportunities, forecasting monthly stock levels and seasonal buys. Work in-line with monthly bulk buying schedules and ensure suppliers receive POs by deadline dates.
• Collaborate with wider team to ensure capacity and space management in stores.
• Calculate monthly credit values and work with finance to ensure bulk credits are received.
• Actively work with the commercial team on timelines for cost price increases and rebate terms to recognise opportunities on bulk buying stock to maximise margin.
• Report on business stock levels and availability weekly, providing data led suggestions and insight on stock levels.
• Working with large amounts of data to provide clear and accurate information for product categories on stock levels for range reviews, monthly, seasonal and ad-hoc reporting with a view to maximising profitability.
• Owner of the never out of stock report, ensuring the SMT is kept updated with a view on stock levels of key lines.

• You will be comfortable working with a large amount of data and manipulating to provide accurate and presentable reporting for the team.
• Pro-actively make suggestions on stock movements or clearance offers based on slow moving lines.
• Work with stock compliance to action clearing through slow moving lines in ex-hubs and stores, whilst owning the process end to end.
• Maximise regional opportunities in stores by ensuring optimum £ per SQ FT – propose stock movements and replacements.

Knowledge, Skills and experiences;

• A methodical, analytical and process driven approach with strong problem-solving skills.
• Attention to detail and the ability to spot anomalies, suggesting course of action to mitigate issues.
• Self-motivated, Strong communicator and excellent relationship building skills.
• Use your initiative to run projects and identify opportunities through new tasks.
• Able to work in a busy environment and meet deadlines whilst attention to detail is paramount.
• Previous experience of stock management, with a large number of SKUs is preferable.
• Previous experience of Sage software would be an advantage.
• The ability to handle multiple priorities to meet tight deadlines.
• Strong computer skills, advanced knowledge of Excel required.
• The ability to present a plan and deliver.