Demand Planner

Job Purpose/Overview:

Aligned with Royal Canin OGSM 2030, the purpose of the job is:

• To lead the demand planning process and deliver an accurate demand forecast using tools and insights available for Philippines and Indonesia, playing a critical role in the organization to enable excellent customer service and availability.
• To deploy and reinforce demand, planning best practice processes and core systems implementation (FUTURMASTER) in each market.
• To drive change management in the areas of planning, people and process.
• To support, guide and train business users in both demand planning process and systems adaptation.
• To be the Demand Planning Key User for PH and ID: The Key User (KU) is the enabler for the local business community to work in accordance with the regionally agreed best practice processes and to efficiently make use of the related/new systems. As operational expert of the area of responsibility the KU is the voice of his local community towards the Business Process Owners (BPO)/FuturMaster and Regional Functional Experts (RFE) (if exist).
• To drive continuous improvement of DMR step of the S&OP+ process in each country.

The Demand Planner will be part of the SEA Cluster Demand Planning team, reporting into RCPH Supply Chain Head.

This role needs to be strongly connected to internal stakeholders within the country and across SEA cluster (Country Demand Teams, SEA Demand & Supply Planning Community, Country S&OP step owners, Local & Cluster Leadership Team) and Regional/Global stakeholders (Regional VCO teams, Global DP COP) to ensure proper communication of relevant elements to these different stakeholders.

Key Responsibilities:

Demand Planning

• The Demand Planner will lead the demand planning process for
  Indonesia and Philippines
  and deliver a consensus demand plan based on statistical forecast and assumptions incorporating multiple views that will enable the organization to deliver the expected growth and customer service levels.
• He/she will facilitate the DMR meeting for both countries and is expected to participate in local S&OP+ steps.
• Provide updated forecast views on a period basis and articulate the risk/opportunity profile for each market.
• Actively engage Demand teams (Sales and Marketing) to ensure that their market and customer knowledge and plans are reflected in the forecasts.
• Work with Demand teams to drive forecast accuracy and bias improvement in line with agreed KPI's.
• Identify and mitigate risk in relation to supply chain.
• Regularly monitor and report on significant variances between actual sales, forecasts, budgets and business plans. Analyze historical sales data and demand phasing/trend, lead root-cause-analysis initiatives and recommend corrective and preventive actions.
• Collaborate closely with Supply Chain team and communicate any supply/service constraints to internal stakeholders and provide timely input to ensure right product availability.
• Support the right coordination with Regional teams to provide visibility on market forecast outlook and key changes.
• Ensure continuous improvement in the demand planning processes and systems which include development of strategies for new product introduction and phase-in/outs.

E2E Planning Program

• Act as the Guardian of RC E2E Planning Core Model Solution and Process Golden rules (specific to Demand Planning) in his/her markets.
• Manage and coordinate all day-to-day project tasks with the cross functional project team and local teams.
• Coordinate with Regional/Global program manager, global BPO's, FuturMaster consultants and all local stakeholders to deliver the project on time.
• Implement planning processes as per the global/regional standard guidelines and Ensure creation of all necessary documentation for his/her markets.
• Facilitate the change linked to new ways of working with consistent communication to all local stakeholders in his/her markets.
• Ensure master data cleansing enabling the project success in his/her market(s).
• Support, guide and train key users to adopt the process and supporting systems.

Philippines/Indonesia Key User

• Acquire the best knowledge about business processes and supporting systems functionality.
• Assess process conformance in local business community and suggest actions for improvements to RFE or BPOs if required.
• With RFE support if exists, test new systems functionality (periodical and yearly slots) with the objective to avoid process perturbation and to potentially introduce the new functionality into local business processes in order to move to the next level of best practice.
• Train business users (existing and new joiners) on business processes and supporting systems functionality.
• Support business users by fixing issues or by escalating issues to regional or global support teams, IT or Business.
• Represent area of responsibility in x-functional workgroups with other KUs to ensure seamless integration across functions locally.

Job Specifications/Qualifications:

• Bachelor's Degree and/or Master's Degree in Business, Engineering, Supply Chain, or other related fields.
• Proficiency in ERP + Planning software/tools and strong Excel skills.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills. Fluency in English is a must.
• Minimum 3 years' experience in Demand Planning/Forecasting role, ideally FMCG company.
• A solid understanding of demand planning, S&OP and supply chain processes.
• Strong mathematical and statistical knowledge.
• Prior experience in supply planning, inventory management, logistics operations and project management is a plus.
• Business travel within SEA is required as the role covers two markets.
• Estimated frequency: 4 times a year / quarterly.