Sr Manager, Planning

Company Description

Our Mission

At Palo Alto Networks® everything starts and ends with our mission:

Being the cybersecurity partner of choice, protecting our digital way of life.

We have the vision of a world where each day is safer and more secure than the one before. These aren’t easy goals to accomplish – but we’re not here for easy. We’re here for better. We are a company built on the foundation of challenging and disrupting the way things are done, and we’re looking for innovators who are as committed to shaping the future of cybersecurity as we are.

Disruption is at the core of our technology and on our way of work to meet the needs of our employees now and in the future through FLEXWORK, our approach to how we work. We’re changing the nature of work from benefits to learning, location to leadership, we’ve rethought and recreated every aspect of the employee experience at Palo Alto Networks. And because it FLEXes around each individual employee based on their individual choices, employees are empowered to push boundaries and help us all evolve, together.

Job Description

Your Career 

Palo Alto Networks is looking for an experienced and knowledgeable individual to manage processes and systems across Demand, Portfolio Management, Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) and Sales and Operations Execution (S&OE). This role will manage end to end processes for balancing demand and supply choices and has the accountability to assist and manage the identification and resolution of plan variances, inventory, cost and service optimization in alignment to the business objectives. The planning manager is expected to develop and maintain strong professional relationships with cross functional teams, such as GTM (Go To Market), Product Management, Supply Chain Program and Materials Mgmt, Logistics and Finance to reconcile top-down financial plans with the bottom-up operational plans.  The position will report to the Director, Planning.  

This role will also help drive the continuous improvement of the planning processes and frameworks (S&OP and S&OE), as well as contributing to special projects (including automation) and other supply chain and business strategy initiatives. 

We are looking for  a well-rounded individual who encompasses excellent analytical, communication, people and leadership skills with strong business and commercial acumen. They should be able to work under pressure and cross-functionally, to drive sound decision making with a result-oriented focus. They should also be able to quickly identify deviations from expected results and other disruptions and should be able to promptly lead their team to resolve any issues, fostering a high performance and engaged culture. This individual should also have excellent presentation skills.

Your Impact 

• Manage demand and portfolio management teams (including NPI and EOL) while driving optimization of a S&OP forecast that drives the manufacturing build plan and decisions for last time buys.

• Develop monthly S&OP input (medium- or long-term demand plans), evaluate supply plans generated and inventory implications from it.

• Drive continuous improvements in forecast and planning models/processes, planning systems, reporting, teams and processes.

• Facilitate and lead continuous analysis around changing demand, supply performance and provide input to improvement initiatives to optimize inventory, reduce obsolescence across the network, while maintaining desired level of service levels for customers.

• Work with business unit leadership to generate a consensus demand plan, consensus supply plan and a final S&OP plan.

• Ability to run and create new forecasting models based on statistical data to predict future demand and lead AI driven forecasting initiatives with the team

• Influence and collaborate with key partners in product management, sales, Go To Market, operations and finance and address input gaps as identified by forecast error, volatility review, supplier performance, supply constraints and other means.

• Drive both S&OP and S&OE, work with relevant stakeholders and business leadership to discuss the potential risks and opportunities associated with changes to demand and the supply.

• Ensure that demand and supply plans are shared/received at the level of detail and timing required by all customers and supply chain partners, with documented assumptions, to achieve the various business objectives.

• Collaborate with various cross-functional teams on projects such as new product launches, GTM Promotions/Programs, and any other supply chain impacting strategies and be able to showcase sound business decision making aligned with company goals.

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