Senior Central Planner - Totalsports at TFG (The Foschini Group)

Key Responsibilities:

Planning Systems Administration & Maintenance

• System Oversight: Serve as the Super User across all planning-related systems, ensuring optimal performance and alignment with business needs.
• User Management: Facilitate onboarding and training of new users, manage access rights, and ensure compliance with data governance policies.
• Troubleshooting & Support: Act as the first point of contact for system-related issues, resolving user queries and escalating technical problems when necessary.
• Implementation & Upgrades: Lead or support the rollout of new system features, updates, and integrations, ensuring minimal disruption to business operations.
• User Acceptance Testing (UAT): Coordinate and execute UAT processes for new functionalities, ensuring they meet business requirements before deployment.

Logistics & Supply Chain Coordination

• Ticketing & Issue Resolution: Monitor and manage logistics tickets, ensuring timely resolution of supply chain disruptions or queries.
• Shipping Oversight: Collaborate with logistics teams to ensure accurate and timely shipping of merchandise, aligned with planning forecasts.
• Warehouse Coordination: Liaise with warehousing teams to ensure inventory levels support store plans and promotional activities, minimizing stockouts or overstock.

Reporting & Analytics

• Financial Reporting: Compile and deliver comprehensive monthly and weekly financial packs, including sales performance, inventory metrics, and forecast accuracy.
• Data Integrity: Ensure all reports are based on clean, validated data and reflect current business realities.
• Insights & Recommendations: Provide actionable insights from reports to support strategic decision-making across planning and merchandising functions.

Planning & Strategy Alignment

• Pre-Season Store Planning: Develop detailed store plans ahead of each season, incorporating historical data, trend analysis, and strategic objectives.
• Corporate Guidelines: Prepare and distribute planning guidelines that align with the overall merchandise strategy and corporate goals.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Build and maintain strong relationships with key stakeholders in merchandising, finance, logistics, and IT to ensure planning systems and processes are fully integrated and mutually beneficial.

Qualifications and Experience:

• A relevant tertiary qualification 
• 7+ years’ proven merchandise distribution and planning experience 
• Product knowledge will be advantageous 
• Knowledge of Legality System advantageous