Demand Planning Manager

Key Responsibilities

Policy Development and Governance

• Author and maintain the Demand Planning Policy, defining the principles, authorities, escalation paths, and compliance requirements for all forecasting activities
• Establish governance cadences (monthly policy reviews, quarterly audits) to ensure adherence to approved planning standards
• Define roles, responsibilities, and accountabilities (RACI) for all participants in the demand planning process
• Develop and enforce data governance standards for forecast inputs, ensuring traceability, version control, and audit readiness
• Recommend and implement policy amendments in response to organizational changes, market shifts, or audit findings

Procedures and Standard Operating Practices

• Design, document, and maintain Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for statistical forecasting, consensus building, assumption logging, and exception management
• Define the end-to-end demand planning workflow, including trigger points, decision gates, approval hierarchies, and handoff protocols between functions
• Establish procedures for new product introduction (NPI) forecasting, product phase out, and promotional demand overlays
• Define escalation and exception handling procedures for forecast overrides, ensuring all adjustments are justified, documented, and approved per policy
• Maintain a controlled document library for all demand planning procedures, ensuring version control and periodic review cycles (minimum semi-annual)

Metrics, Measurement, and Continuous Improvement

• Conduct root cause analysis on forecast variances and recommend corrective actions with documented remediation plans
• Propose new practices such as demand sensing, machine learning augmented forecasting, and external signal integration (e.g., leading economic indicators, channel sell through data)
• Lead periodic process maturity assessments and recommend capability uplift initiatives
• Benchmark internal practices against industry standards and recommend adoption of emerging methodologies

SIOP/S&OP Process Ownership

• Own and govern the demand review step of the Sales, Inventory & Operations Planning (SIOP) process, including the meeting cadence, agenda structure, and output requirements
• Define and enforce the procedures for preparing, reviewing, and approving the consensus demand plan prior to executive presentation
• Establish the standard format and content requirements for SIOP demand submissions, including scenario analyses, risk registers, and assumption logs
• Reconcile top-down financial targets with bottom up statistical and sales driven forecasts per documented reconciliation procedures
• Recommend process enhancements to the SIOP cycle based on post meeting retrospectives and stakeholder feedback

Cross-Functional Collaboration and Procedural Alignment

• Partner with Sales and Product Management to establish procedures for incorporating pipeline intelligence, NPI forecasts, and customer insights into the demand plan
• Collaborate with Supply Planning and Procurement to define the handoff procedures and service level agreements (SLAs) for demand signal transmission
• Work with Finance to align demand forecasting procedures with revenue planning cycles, ensuring consistent assumptions and reconciliation checkpoints
• Engage with regional and country teams to validate local market assumptions per standardised regional input templates

Systems, Tools, and Automation

• Define system usage policies and user access protocols for demand planning tools and ERP modules
• Recommend and implement automation opportunities to reduce manual effort, improve repeatability, and enforce procedural compliance
• Develop dashboards and reporting aligned to the approved KPI framework, providing visibility into demand performance, process adherence, and policy compliance
• Champion data quality initiatives by establishing validation rules, exception reports, and remediation workflows for forecast input data

Requirements:

• Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, Finance, Business or related field
• 8-10 years of related experience in a material planning/ sales inventory control/ logistics/ customer service within a manufacturing and operations environment.
• Has Business analytics, data science knowledge
• Strong understanding of Continuous Improvement and Lean Techniques and applications
• Demonstrates proficiency in all MS office applications
• Excellent verbal and written communications skills
• Skilled in data visualization tools (PowerBI, Smartsheet, Microsoft List/Planner)
• Demonstrated leadership and organization skills with a team orientation.
• APICS / CPIM Certificate would be an asset.