Demand Planning Manager at RCL Foods

Job description

RCL FOODS is on the hunt to secure an experienced Demand Planning Manager to join the dynamic and demanding Consumer Division. This position will be located at our colourful Head Office in Westville, Durban, with some travel being required.

The Demand Planning Manager is responsible to own, facilitate, and lead the sales forecasting and demand management process for RCL FOODS in order to drive visibility of demand to the business and in particular to the supply chain. As well improve product prioritisation and associated business decisions and improve customer service.

The Demand Planning Manager will be responsible for leading a team of demand planners, ensuring their career development and operational requirements are met.

Minimum Requirements:

• Relevant Bachelor of Commerce Degree.
• 5 years prior experience in supply chain planning, within FMCG / Foods industry would be preferable.
• At least 3 years’ experience in demand planning in a management role.
• SAP advantageous.

Duties & Responsibilities:

• Functional Strategy:
• Work in conjunction with other Senior Managers to co-create the outbound national strategy
• Ensure the agreed business and team targets are implemented
• Coordinate and drive the national outbound supply chain planning projects
• Demand Planning and Management;
• Manage the forward demand planning process, using the appropriate tools and time periods
• Use understanding of product profitability, trading environment and customer knowledge to lead the demand management discussions, particularly for price sensitive categories.
• Develop a longer term business forecast that will be used to drive decisions within the supply chain for capacity planning
• Work closely with the sales team to complete promotional effectiveness analysis and provide input into pricing decisions, determine the volumes and challenge assumptions where necessary.
• Work closely with the supply and distribution planning teams, particularly with regards to promotions activity, to ensure delivery of customer service targets
• Continuous Improvement and Commercial Management
• Drive continuous improvement in both forecast bias and customer service excellence by using facts and trends learnt through appropriate analysis of data.
• Use appropriate KPI's to drive the improvement in the forecasts and minimize volatility.
• Optimise the existing collaborative planning processes with key customers and propose opportunities to establish collaboration with new customers.
• Integrate the forecast with profitability and drive the “plan for profit” conversation
• Drive and encourage cost management initiatives and highlight the net impact of business choices using commercial input
• Innovation and Discontinuation;
• Work with Marketing and Customer teams to develop the forecast for new products and to manage discontinuation of products out of the business.
• Complete the data analysis to provide make recommendations on where opportunities exist to remove SKU's from the portfolio using agreed guidelines.
• Lead the discussion with business teams on portfolio management, customer and production classification and drive rationalization of the tail.
• Sales and Operations Planning;
• Be actively involved in driving the Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) process by reviewing of the customer demand and supply resources, in order to reconcile the GAP and achieve the S&OP “one number”.
• Drive demand planning within the S&OP calendar to effectively deliver the business forecast
• Work closely with Commercial to convert the volume forecast into a value forecast.
• Record the assumptions behind the demand plan, risks and opportunities and provide these as input into the S&OP process.
• Prepare and issue the S&OP packs for the S&OP meetings and input into the board pack.

Master Data and Hierarchy Management;

Manage the maintenance and setting up of master data and hierarchies in accordance with both demand planning and sales requirements, including managing conversion ratios and ensure data integrity within the relevant systems used