Demand Planning Manager at Cadbury Nigeria Plc

Job Number: 1612150

Job Description

• The Demand Planner will be responsible for being an effective contributor to the demand management cycle of the Integrated Business Planning (IBP) process for their Families & a contributor to strategy & structure discussions.
• You will act as the link between the commercial and operational teams and develop ways to continuously improve communications between the functions to support the delivery of the business KPI’s for their Families/Category.
• The Demand Planner will contribute to the business by developing a rolling forecast that will ensure that the business runs off an aligned, agreed and common set of numbers. 
• You will facilitate a top-down, bottom-up, and middle-out forecast for our brands to ensure that a realistic plan is in place.

Primary Accountabilities / Responsibilities

• Facilitate the collaborative demand planning process:
  • Work closely with Sales, Marketing and Finance (drive internal collaboration) to create Building Blocks at levels representative of market segments and product families that can be forecasted with levels of confidence and accuracy
  • Develop detailed forecasts based on family level consensus forecasts, and will provide easy analysis for use in the IBP (Integrated Business Planning) process
  • Ensure that assumptions, risks and opportunities are managed, understood and escalated.
  • Map out demand drivers assumed in forecast & validate them against statistical and historical events.
  • Lead forecast bias and forecast error corrective action within the categories
• Lead and facilitate the relevant forums of the monthly demand cycle for the Cocoa Beverages, Gum & Candy category
• Develop strong communication and partnering links with Regional Demand Planning / IBP Team, Sales, Category Activation and Supply Planning to ensure that supply planning issues are captured, and where applicable are escalated within business-wide category planning forum
• Ensure that risks to business are escalated within business-wide category planning forums with Root Cause Analysis and recommendations for mitigation.
• Ensure the accurate input by the portfolio team and the timely delivery as required by stakeholders, the demand team and the regional demand and IBP teams.
• Interface with relevant category supply planners to provide input to the weekly demand control process
• Coach and develop direct reports to ensure capabilities are constantly achieved and sought for development within a current role and for future roles within the business.
• Ensure the maintenance of all relevant system data to required standards. This includes date validity, Master Data and other data elements impacting on the planning process
• Monitor and communicate any imbalance or potential KPI miss with options to mitigate on a weekly and monthly basis. Key KPIs to monitors are Case Fill Rate (CFR), Month End Peak (MEP), Invoice Accuracy (IA), etc
• Follow through with issues and actions arising within the monthly business management cycle are managed to completion

Qualifications

Knowledge: including education, qualifications and training

• University Degree     
• Understanding and knowledge of SAP ERP and planning systems (SCORe/APO)    
• Extensive knowledge of Manufacturing capabilities and processes, production scheduling constraints    
• Knowledge /understanding of linkages and functional interdependencies within the organization   

Skills/Leadership Competencies:

• Intellectual Horsepower/ Handling complexity: Deal with concepts and complexity comfortably, critical questioning and ability to effectively rationalise    
• Drive for results: ability to drive for completion to target     
• Decision Quality: Make good decisions based on analysis, facts, wisdom and experience even under the time pressure     
• Team Player; ability to support and lead to achieve common goals    
• Interpersonal Savvy; ability to build good rapport, usage of diplomacy and tact, can diffuse even high-tension situations comfortably  
• Strong Communication and Presentation skills; can manage group process during the presentation, can change tactics midstream when something isn't working     
• Standing alone; willing to be the only champion for an idea or position, is comfortable working alone on a tough assignment    
• Problem solving: Proactive and resourceful in solving problems, offering innovative and practical solutions in dynamic environment.    
• Time management: Ability to manage workload effectively even under pressure. Ability to set up priorities and focus on what matters to meet deadlines and fulfill key goals in an international dynamic environment    

Experience

• 7-10 years of work experience    
• Minimum of 3 years’ experience in demand planning    
• Experience of working with and managing multiple stakeholders    
• Experience in leading key project development and execution    

Operating Environment

• The jobholder operates in a global highly complex and dynamic business environment.
• The jobholder is a part of the team who needs to successfully manage conflicting goals/interests on a daily basis.
• The position requires excellent proven functional and technical skills including planning system knowledge paired with business understanding and the capability to recognize trends and translate them into tangible solutions.
• Ability to develop and influence a wide network of business partners in the organizations.