Demand Planning Manager at Mars

Everything we do is driven by our passion for the health and wellbeing of every cat and dog. You can now join us at Royal Canin on this mission.

Our deep understanding of cats and dogs needs makes it possible for us to design the world's most precise pet health nutrition. We never stop learning and never take anything for granted. That’s why we collaborate with leading scientific, veterinary and behavioral experts, breeders and other pet professionals and maintain an ongoing dialogue with cat and dog owners worldwide.

Job Purpose:

• To own, facilitate, and administrate sales forecasting and demand management for local market in collaboration with extended VCO teams and Pillars
• Own the base demand plan
• Effectively interacts and communicate with the factories (South Africa and Europe) maintaining high level of customer satisfaction (RJH and import forecasts)
• Deliver an accurate demand plan in sell-out based on market and regional insights.
• Maintain a constant relationship with the sales, marketing, finance, sourcing and manufacturing teams to understand the demand forecasting drivers.
• Challenge the forecasts from the sales teams and the usual runs (historical data, seasonality, market trends, special offers, budgets…) with relevant data analysis.
• Improve the forecasts accuracy (statistical models) with coordinated actions and update of FM planning too

What are we looking for?

• 3-5 years working experience in supply chain management
• Minimum 2 years’ experience directly in demand planning or supply planning
• Prefer to have more than 2 years working experience at multinational companies
• Knowledge in Import Process and Supply Planning is a plus
• Advantage to have experience in premium or nutritional product industry
• Prefer experience in manufacturing environment
• Bachelor’s degree in business administration, logistics, or related fields
• Excellent communication (both written & oral) in English
• Expert data analytics capabilities, including strong EXCEL capabilities

What will be your key responsibilities?

• Develop a reliable demand plan for South Africa over a rolling 26-period horizon in collaboration with Pillars
• Facilitate demand consensus meetings with Sales, Marketing and Exports Teams
• Challenge and integrate within the demand plan the hypothesis of growth communicated by the Pillars and work with Finance to deliver ‘1 number’
• Perform ongoing analysis of demand variability, assess risk and take corrective action to close gaps
• Secure the execution of all Promotions and new product deployment plan in collaboration with all relevant stakeholders by incorporating demand: Marketing, Sales, Finance, Supply Chain
• Communicate base to stakeholders for agreement (Pillars, marketing and VCO) upon amendment
• Follow up on quality indicators (over and undersell, new product sell-through, identify deviation root causes and implement corrective actions with stakeholders
• Develop the base demand plan using the most appropriate statistical forecasting tools and make adjustments where necessary
• Develop and implement ‘Event Management’ plan: (weekly & monthly process) in conjunction with Pillars and work with Supply Chain
• Be Supply Chain Representative S&OP+ Step 1 and 2 – PMR/DMR to share supply and inventory update, review baseline numbers and assumptions with cross-functional teams
• Flag inventory concerns, collaborate with Sales and Marketing to resolve ad-hoc requests, inventory phasing (short-dated/high inventory products and SLOBs)
• Establish and continuously review the supply chain standard operation procedures with relation to promotional management ensuring that it is being followed 
• Participate in activity management projects to ensure product availability for South Africa market on time as per project plan and highlight concerns and build plans to mitigate with relevant teams
• Maintain product master data in the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system (NAVISION).
• Generate the new product forecast using the historical substitution and like modelling/scenario planning techniques agreed with Marketing and Pillars
• Own and Facilitate the Demand Planning Process
• Build up deck to share on Risk and Opportunity captured during meetings
• Support market initiatives in improving the quality of their demand plan by assessing the effectiveness of their process, offering guidance and sharing best practices.

What can you expect from Mars?

• Work with over 130,000 like-minded and talented Associates, all guided by The Five Principles.
• Join a purpose driven company, where we’re striving to build the world we want tomorrow, today.
• Best-in-class learning and development support from day one, including access to our in-house Mars University.
• An industry competitive salary and benefits package, including company bonus.