Demand Planning Manager

Plays the lead role in ensuring that product demand forecasts are created, reviewed, published and refined when appropriate for short, medium and long-term horizons . Translate the strategic business plan through facilitation and collaboration into a demand plans for purposes of supply chain planning. Lead the integration of customer demand plans into the KFC business through joint business planning.

The scope of this role includes the whole of BU Africa along with all applicable Yum! brands.

• Drive the creation of short, medium and long-term demand baseline forecast at menu board item level
• Coordinate the creation of a promotional forecast at menu board item level
• Work with Marketing and Finance to combine, refine and publish total business demand plan (in applicable levels/aggregated views e.g. by product; by region; by category etc.)
• Measure forecast accuracy at granular and total category levels
• Create insights from business forecast analysis to drive continuous improvement (specifically from a proactiveness point of view) in Supply Chain
• Support Supply Planning with Management short dated stock
• Work with Marketing and Finance departments on impact of mix changes on business profitability and supply planning
• Assists in developing the Annual Operating Plan (AOP), providing longer term analysis of demand to assist Supply Chain leadership in assessing longer term supply capacity needs
• Manage NPD introduction demand plans to deliver key KPI's
• Drive service levels with incremental improvements by working closely with the supply planning and 3PL teams
• Collaboration and information sharing across functions and stakeholders
• Incorporate market intelligence into demand plans
• Coordinate cross-functional work into Demand levers
• Coordinates cross functional resolution of day-to-day issues related to supply and demand discrepancies
• Performs root cause analysis on key forecast deviations. Supports Business, Marketing, Supply Planning and production strategies and identify opportunities to meet market needs.
• Lead the integration of demand plans into KFC business through joint business planning.
• In collaboration with Supply Planning and Category Teams, ensure the right stock is in the right place at the right time to deliver customer requirements regionally and at DC level
• Balances a complex set of variables to ensure reduction overall forecast error.
• Forecast analysis and improvement
• Analyze business: identify and manage trends. Formulate action plans.
• Review historical trends, research demand drivers, prepare forecast data, develop statistical models, and evaluate forecast results
• Collaborates with Supply Planning Managers in planning for new items and items to be transitioned or discontinued.
• Generates KPI's that will monitor demand expectations and take corrective action
• Work with Supply Planner to review and assess risks to supply and demand variability and identify opportunities to manage and mitigate risk.
• Continuously evolve Demand Planning strategy and roadmap to stay abreast of industry standards and best practices.
• Development and execution of a Demand Planning strategy to fully integrate and leverage the scale of various Yum! brands to deliver a competitive advantage.
• Development of Demand and Supply Chain Digitization strategy to enable end to end automation of Planning process to ultimately drive efficiencies with the SC function.

Communication Required

Marketing and Finance Colleagues - to create consensus total business demand plan, identifying volume gaps and readjust to plan for exceeding targets

Supply Planning Colleagues - aiding in the translation of demand plan into a comprehensive and reliable supply plan which will be communicated to 3PL and suppliers to ultimately drive improved customer service levels

Problem Solving & Analysis

Disagreement on demand forecast; high levels of forecast accuracy; short term gap filling initiatives; master data discrepancies.

Some processes already exist to solve these (and similar) problems, however, it is expected of this role to develop improved approaches/methods to overcome these challenges in a more agile, comprehensive and collaborative manner.

Judgement and Decision Making

Pushing back & recommending amendments in forecast if significant estimated inaccuracies are anticipated (which includes phasing).

Recommending demand plan creation cycle with involved parties in the business

Recommending amendments in Product Master Data and signing off final approval as Product Master Data custodian/owner.

It is expected of this role to critically review all current demand planning and master data management processes in order to make recommendations on improving overall effectiveness

• Proactive problem solving
• Analytical Thinking
• Strategic Thinker
• Process/system thinking ability
• Ability to deal with high levels of complexity under pressure
• Good interpersonal skills
• Ability to innovate
• Bachelors Degree: Supply Chain/Logistics/Engineering/Science
• Minimum 6-8 years experience in Demand Planning