Senior Demand Planning Specialist

At Nestlé Health Science, we believe that nutrition, science, and wellness must merge, not collide. Here, we embrace the intrinsic connections of these three pillars, harnessing their collective strength to empower healthier lives. Our broad product portfolio includes renowned brands like Garden of Life®, Nature's Bounty®, Vital Proteins®, Orgain®, Nuun®, BOOST®, Carnation Breakfast Essentials®, Peptamen®, Compleat Organic Blends®, and more. We also have extensive pharmaceutical expertise, offering innovative medicines that aim to prevent, manage, and treat gastrointestinal and metabolic-related diseases.

At Nestlé Health Science, we bring our best for better lives. Our people are challenged to bring fresh, diverse views and make bold moves to empower healthier lives through nutrition. We know brilliant ideas can come from anyone, anywhere. Here we embrace the entrepreneurial spirit and collaborate with teams that champion focused and forward thinking. We are committed to fostering professional growth and celebrating the achievements of our people along the way. We offer dynamic career paths, robust development, opportunities to learn from talented colleagues around the globe, and benefits that support physical, financial, and emotional wellbeing. 

Join us to innovate for impact and reimagine the future of health and nutrition for patients and consumers. 
 

POSITION OVERVIEW:

Responsible for the accuracy and reliability of the Demand Plan for Nestle Health Science, Vital Proteins Channel, in the US. This includes implementation of performance standards/operating procedures that affect the Demand Planning function; deployment of related demand planning tools/reports; and maintenance of demand forecast for the business unit. Additionally, this person will be the Champion of the Sales and Operations Planning Process (MBP - Monthly Business Planning), assessing the structure and content of the Forecast Enrichment (FEM), Dynamic Forecast Alignment (DFA) meetings, ensuring robust business processes and facilitating the interaction between Sales, Marketing, Finance and Operations.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Creates and maintains the appropriate Master Data in the planning systems in use, minimizing errors, avoiding duplication/obsolescence and reflecting product lifecycle (e.g.  Product Hierarchy, Finished Goods creation workflow, Demand Lifecycle Management). 
• Generates and maintains a Demand Plan for the business unit at the levels (product hierarchy & time) at which the decisions are taken, appropriately considering recent events. 
• Understands Demand Planning key performance metrics and targets. 
• Consistently improves Demand Plan Accuracy and drives out systematic forecast bias through detailed root cause analysis on past performance, maintaining an efficient learning log. 
• Effectively uses all Demand Planning system functionalities to enable an exception based management approach. Implement improvements to the Demand Planning processes and tools to deliver tangible benefits (e.g. time saving, efficiencies). 
• Uses appropriate statistical models and parameters, enriching statistical forecast to generate accurate base demand forecast. Collaborates with the Statistical Forecasting Team (Demand Analysts) in improving statistical models. 
• Contributes to the cross-functional planning activities according to best practices and ensures necessary preparation and follow up actions for the Monthly Business Planning meetings are completed in due time. 
• Makes recommendations on the baseline forecast for the business unit and defends the appropriate changes to the Consensus Demand Plan (CDP). 
• Captures, prioritizes and analyses forecast assumptions used in the consensus demand plan, such as Marketing and Sales events, customer, consumer and competitor information, product launches and related cannibalization with impact to the demand plan. 
• Analyses actual sales to Customers and sell-out (e.g. POS, if available) data to identify exceptional and un-forecasted activities, challenging the appropriate groups to help explain deviations to forecast. Use findings to drive timely and appropriate actions to minimize the impact of deviations from the Demand Plan. 
• Presents outcomes for the Monthly Business Planning process to leadership and get buy-in from the relevant stakeholders. 
• Through systematic reporting, ensures the latest Demand Plan is readily available to internal business partners as required.��
• Holds meetings with Sales to review past pe