Planning Analyst - Cape Town at Clicks Group

Job Objectives

• In collaboration with the Category Buyer, build a strategic plan for Category incorporating an understanding of customer needs and wants, trends, competitive environment and market share
• To develop the annual merchandise financial plan by department for sales, stocks, margins, GP and markdowns taking into account key and relevant financial metrics and inputs
• To partner and support relevant key stakeholders on the development of pre-season sales, markdown, margin, receipt and inventory targets aligned to the strategic business goals whilst ensuring assortments that balance range and space requirements for all stores
• To develop and monitor projections, inventory flow, and seasonal sell-off plans as well as validate monthly forecast for open-to-buy management
• To analyze and reflect current trends in performance of strategy based on actual sales performance; revise in-season plans for sales and profitability
• To prepare and continuously monitor financial budgets and forecasts for the departments by store / channel by product lifecycle and to re-forecast the merchandise financial plans in line with current performance (monthly and weekly), new initiatives or significant deviations, at the appropriate level & review with relevant key stakeholders in order to maximize sales, margin and inventory productivity
• To provide other analysis related to driving business goals (e.g. range hindsight, price curves, cross-selling, etc.)
• To prepare buy plans for key events e.g.: Christmas, Easter etc.
• Adapt new planning processes and systems (Enterprise, Assortment Planning) and consistently utilize new methodology to achieve “best in practice” discipline
• Support the analysis on slow or poor performing products to optimize the OTB and category Stock Turn
• To contribute analysis in the S&OP meeting on the impact of forecast changes to budget plans

Minimum requirements

Job Related Knowledge

 Essential

• Deep understanding of the consistent management and planning of the supplier base performance metrics, promotional planning cycle, product lifecycle, supply chain optimization for their products, business analysis and reporting
• Understanding of customer needs and wants, trends, competitive environment and market share
• Financial planning models and methodologies
• FMCG, Supply Chain and Logistics

Job Related Skills

• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, to build relationships and drive consensus and collaboration across functional groups
• Business math acumen and analysis to comprehend financial information and reporting to make business decisions
• Forecasting financial trends up to 3 years
•  Ability to forecast consumer trends and buying habits 9 – 24 months in the future
• Presentation skills with focus being on oral and written communication skills
• Proficiency on MS Office Excel, Word, Outlook and Power Point
• Complex Problem solving
• Report Writing
• Retail mathematical calculations (e.g. variance to last year, percent of total, turn, Open-to-Buy and sales per square foot)
• Ability to solve practical problems and deal with a variety of concrete variables in situations where only limited standardization exists.

Job Experience

Essential

•  Ideal min 5-7 years of experience in: retail merchandise planning, demand forecasting; inventory management, allocation or replenishment; financial planning or financial analysis experience
• Strong problem-solving and analytical skills; strong aptitude with numbers; retail math skills, understanding of forecasting methodology
• Ability to make decisions with limited information but also able to synthesize large quantities of data to drive business decisions 

Desirable

• Previous experience in enterprise planning or similar planning systems advantageous
• Experience in retail replenishment and allocation; retail sales, category planning or merchandising experience desirable 

Education

• B Comm Finance or relevant B Degree