Job Description:

Segment: Royal CaninLocation: Johannesburg, Gauteng

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 Overview

To own, create, and deliver accurate sales forecasting and demand management for local market in collaboration with extended VCO and Sales Pillar teams.

Accountability for developing the base line demand plan.

Deploy planning standards based on global/ regional guidelines.

Drive Continuous Improvement in collaboration with Regional E2E Demand Planner and/or S&OP+ Managers.

Generating insights to support business decisions from forecasting tools and yearly category/market case studies.

Maintain relationships with the sales, marketing, finance and supply chain teams to incorporate assumptions relative to the demand plan each month.

Validate the inclusion of forecasts from the sales teams backed with data driven insights.

Improve the forecasts accuracy (statistical models) with coordinated actions and updates of FM planning tool

What are we looking for?

Minimum 5-8 years’ experience in a Demand Planning/S&OP/Supply Planning role in a FMCG company .

Minimum 2 years’ Proven track record in demand planning processes, S&OP and business strategy

Prefer to have more than 2 years working experience at multinational companies

Knowledge of inventory and Supply Planning

Advantage to have experience in premium or nutritional product industry

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.

Key Functional Skills

Supply chain planning and Demand Planning management

Analytical capability

Business Process application

Project management

Strategic thinking

Planning

Problem solving

Time Management

What will be your key responsibilities?

PRINCIPAL ACCOUNTABILITIES:

Demand Planning - Develop a accurate and aligned demand plan across minimum 2 Year+ horizon, for a set of defined markets, including promotion and launches, and perform ongoing analysis of demand variability, assess risk and take corrective action to close gaps

Lead Demand Management Review (DMR) and Pre-DMR, generating statistical baseline forecast, supported with demand assumption from the business, to fuel the conversation with the forum stakeholders, to have an aligned outcome.

Facilitate demand consensus meetings with Sales, Marketing and VCO Teams

Challenge and integrate within the demand plan the assumptions communicated by the Pillars and work with Finance to deliver ‘1 number’ converting and aligning Volume through to NSV with relevant Teams each S&OP+ cycle

Perform ongoing analysis of demand variability and scenarios to understand potential business impact

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

Align the baseline to stakeholders for agreement (Pillars, marketing and VCO)

Utilize KPIS (over and undersell, new product sell-through,SFA & BIAS) through understanding of root causes and implementing improvement processes with the broader teams

Develop the base demand plan using the most appropriate statistical forecasting tools and make adjustments where necessary.

Be Representative in S&OP+ Step 1,2 & 3 – PMR/DMR/SMR 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 Futurmaster tool

Generate the new product forecast using the historical substitution and like modelling/scenario planning techniques agreed with Marketing and Pillars

Develop and maintain database of previous promotional activity performance

Build up deck to share on Risk and Opportunity captured during meetings

Periodic reporting to internal stakeholders and to the regional teams in prescribed templates

Support market initiatives in improving the quality of their demand plan by assessing the effectiveness of their process, offering guidance and sharing best practices.

DIMENSION:

Support Forecast System & Data

Owns the Demand Planning process and data enrichment via FuturMaster (RC forecasting software)

Gate keeps the forecast inputs with the Sales and Marketing teams, integrating and communicating to the broader S&OP+ stakeholders

User of SA4 (BW/BI software)

Update and support system data quality (using 1Navision)

Lead projects to enhance process efficiencies through improved functionalities.

Continuous improvement of Forecasting and Supply planning tools (maintaining master tool and optimizing parameters)

What can you expect from Mars?

Work with over 130,000 diverse 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.

Mars is an equal opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. If you need assistance or an accommodation during the application process because of a disability, it is available upon request. The company is pleased to provide such assistance, and no applicant will be penalized as a result of such a request.