Better Placed are pleased to be working exclusively with Asahi UK and they are looking for a Demand Planner - Grocery to join their team at their Woking office!
About Asahi
Asahi UK are part of Asahi Europe & International Ltd and aims to enrich consumer experiences through innovation, high quality service and an exceptional portfolio of premium beer, ale and cider brands including, Peroni Nastro Azzurro, Asahi Super Dry, Meantime, Fuller's London Pride and Cornish Orchards. Their aim is to be the leading super premium beer business in the UK, through brand mix that creates a compelling proposition. At Asahi UK, they operate as an end-to-end business unit responsible for sales, marketing, customer operations, production, supply chain and wholesale operations in the UK and Ireland.
The Role
The Demand Planner is responsible for the creation of a robust demand signal for 100+ skus and 200 customers across the UK and Ireland, delivered through strong technical statistical analysis and collaborative working with customers and commercials team. These places are produced weekly and monthly for the longer term 18-month plan. These plans are shared with the supply planning team to ensure inventory availability to deliver the expected levels of customer service.
Key Accountabilities
The Demand Planner is responsible for the following key outputs and accountabilities.
Sales and Operations Planning
- Support the Head of Demand and SC Service with the co-ordinating the overall sales and operations planning process
- Supply Chain representative at Channel Sales meetings. Responsible for fielding all supply chain issues in this forum particularly sales forecast accuracy, any service problems and new pack/product introduction
- Support Customer Services and Inventory team with identifying and resolving aged stock issues
Long term demand planning
- Annually provide support in delivering a 3 year demand forecast considering business and industry trends as part of the Integrated Market Planning process
- Provide support and detailed analysis for Budget and Profit Forecast reviews enabling the AUK finance and management team to reach consensus on annual sales volumes for financial planning
Short and medium-range demand planning
- Responsible for delivering a robust weekly and 18 month rolling demand forecast for each SKU at depot level ensuring timely provision to the supply planning team to complete supply planning activities
- Responsible for obtaining volume consensus, from initial sales forecast meeting to management review meetings and managing volume related risk and opportunities
- Own the AUK statistical forecast, continuously improving accuracy and driving business relevance
- Work closely with the sales team who provide specific customer insight and promotional plan to develop an aligned "commercial" demand forecast
- Responsible for demand planning tools to support the planning process
- Improve forecasting capability within the sales team by providing 'best practice' in forecasting training and continuous feedback
- Engage with key external customers to improve forecasting information and to ensure promotional volumes and timings are realistic and fully reflected
- In collaboration with the Supply Planning team monitor in transit stock, stock receipts, order policy and safety stock policy
Reporting
- Provide analysis and insight to business on volume trends; considering Customer Marketing, special effects, Market & Competitors and understanding demand volatility
- Capture and proactively monitor Economical and weather data to improve accuracy of demand forecast
- Develop and deliver customer EPOS and Promotional performance reporting
- Identify gaps in store availability and produce plans to rectify gaps
- Responsible for the development and delivery of monthly accuracy reporting including for the European HUB and internally to drive continuous improvement
Demand Control
- Responsible for providing demand control through monitoring consumption against forecast for all skus, making adjustments where necessary and identifying and communication to the sales team any short term supply issues, weighing up trade-offs, taking decisions and owning the allocation process
Customer management
- Together with the Head of Demand and Supply Chain Service establish a customer contact strategy to support AUK service objectives
- Engage with key external customers discussing forecasting and inventory information received directly for the customer and to ensure promotional volumes and timings are fully reflected
- Working with the individual customer sales forecasts, is responsible for managing new product/package introductions. Responsible for matching the customer's requirements with supply chain capability around volumes and timings to ensure a successful launch
Ad hoc
- Providing ad hoc analytical support to various departments and senior management for business decision making
The Person
- Graduate calibre or equivalent working experience
- Previous experience in a forecasting role ideally from FMCG background
- Must have Grocery experience
- Previous experience in developing S&OP processes
- System experience within a recognised ERP and/or planning system with experience of implementing system developments an advantage
- Good Microsoft skills. Excel to advanced level
- Experienced of customer interactions with excellent communication and presentation skills
- Strong Customer and Service delivery focus
- Strong analytical skills with high attention to detail
- Able to build strong working relationships with colleague of varying levels of seniority
