Junior Demand Planner

Job Description

At RCL Foods, we believe in growing what matters! As a leading food manufacturer, our goal is to nourish people with a portfolio of trusted brands and products. We are committed to innovation, sustainability, and the development of our employees.

We are seeking a highly motivated and detail-oriented Junior Demand Planner to join our dynamic Supply Chain team. In this role you will be responsible to deliver a base forecast with promotional uplift to facilitate the S&OP process and enable visibility of unconstrained demand to the business unit. The role will be based in Westville, Durban and will report into the Demand Planning Manager.

Duties & Responsibilities

Junior Demand Planner:

• Running the Activity and Demand reviews as part of the monthly S&OP process to highlight the forward Forecasted volumes and assumptions to the Business unit.
• Work with Customer teams to understand and comment on the monthly sales performance and the impact to the category 12-month volume outlook.
• Work closely with the front-end team to generate and maintain the 12-month rolling forecast including uplift for promotions (document the assumptions including promo mechanics, volume, price and regions).
• Use historical data on comparative promotional volume to improve the accuracy of the agreed promotion uplift.
• Review the promotional uplift expectations vs forecast assumption once promo has ended.
• Manage Forecast Bias and Accuracy across the SKU and customer portfolio by monitoring sales vs. Forecast weekly and monthly and making adjustments to the forecast where required.
• Generate and maintain statistical baseline forecasts in the system.
• Cleansing of sales history, at a weekly level, based on insights from customer teams.
• Publish the forecast and KPI’s in the agreed format, in line with the agreed timeline for weekly reports and monthly scorecards.
• Work with the cross-functional team on all new innovations, including Masterdata creation, volume assumptions, discontinuation of current products.
• Monitor and track progress of innovation vs the forecasted volumes and highlight and risks to the business regarding under/oversells.
• Maintain the product hierarchy master data in accordance with both demand planning and business requirements.
• Work with the Master Data team to ensure hierarchy changes are appropriately actioned and communicated to the business.
• Provide input into Customer Hierarchies when requested.

Ad-hoc/Other:

• Maintain all weekly and monthly reports, files and documents centrally and in an organized fashion on SharePoint.

Minimum Requirements

• Bachelor of Commerce/Economics Degree, or related Supply Chain Degree.
• 2 years’ experience in Demand Planning or Supply Chain Role and have worked in a FMCG company.
• Intermediate ability in Excel is a prerequisite.

Knowledge and Skills:

• Critical thinking skills.
• Problem solving skills.
• S&OP process awareness.
• A Strong ability to analyse numbers and understand trends.
• Excellent attention to detail and able to work independently.
• Good communication skills: Strong verbal and written communication.
• Strong relationship building and Inquisitive approach with an emphasis on sound interaction and excellent relationship with the front-end team.