Manager, Demand Planning I

 

At Bayer we’re visionaries, driven to solve the world’s toughest challenges and striving for a world where 'Health for all Hunger for none’ is no longer a dream, but a real possibility. We’re doing it with energy, curiosity and sheer dedication, always learning from unique perspectives of those around us, expanding our thinking, growing our capabilities and redefining ‘impossible’. There are so many reasons to join us. If you’re hungry to build a varied and meaningful career in a community of brilliant and diverse minds to make a real difference, there’s only one choice.

 

Manager, Demand Planning I 

 

YOUR TASKS AND RESPONSIBILITIES

 

The primary responsibilities of this role, Manager, Demand Planning I, are to:

 

• Improve the Demand Forecast;
• Own the Demand Planning process and accuracy of the forecast;
• Increase demand forecasting accuracy by removing forecast bias, utilizing robust analytics, while applying logic from brand, market, and customer trends;
• Review customer/item-level key forecast misses from prior periods, conduct root cause analytics, and enable methods for continuous improvement;
• Deliver forecast accuracy (FCA%), forecast volume error (FVE%), and forecast bias (FCB%) KPI’s (key performance indicators) to meet annual targets. Leverage internal exception reporting such as Repeating Bias and the Integrated Planning workbook to achieve these results;
• Maintain the aligned demand plan as a result of the monthly Category Demand Review, and ensure a clean translation of the demand plan to the Finance Business Partner and General Manager for use in financial forecasting activities;
• Sustain customer projections for retail inventory builds and seasonal shipment / consumption plans;
• Be operationally responsible for demand forecast;
• Manage statistical models to predict baseline demand trends for both POS (Point of Sale) and shipments, and drive model accuracy improvement;
• Create a shipment-based demand forecast at the customer/item and item/dc levels, and clearly communicate changes and key misses to Product Supply for context;
• Validate forecast Risks & Opportunities as managed by Finance, and share with Product Supply to proactively risk-mitigate potential write-off or customer service issues before they occur;
• Manage the aligned Demand Plan to customer/SKU level forecasts through the Field Sales Force, with assistance from Sales Strategy;
• Own the partnerships with key leadership and product supply;
• Serve as demand forecasting expert for your brand(s), and generate key drivers and insights of demand forecasts within your portfolio at all relevant meetings (e.g. Category Demand Review and Category S&OP (sales and Operations planning) meetings).

 

WHO YOU ARE

 

Your success will be driven by your demonstration of our life values, more specifically related to this position, Bayer seeks an incumbent who possesses the following:

 

Required qualifications:

 

• Bachelor’s degree in business and / or supply chain specialization required;
• A working knowledge of Demand Planning industry best practices including Predictive Analytics, Lean Forecasting Techniques, Ship v Consumption Modelling, and Demand Sensing;
• Capable of influencing “up” without reliance on functional authority, leveraging facts and data;
• Competencies in statistical baseline modelling algorithms;
• Experience working in a demand planning system that is able to integrate product, customer, and location hierarchies;
• Capable of proactively mitigating customer service or product obsolescence risk through partnership with other supply chain functions;
• Strong Excel skills including the following areas: pivot tables / graphs, slicers, regression analysis, database management, and related add-ins including think cell, empower;
• Exposure to data reporting applications such as Tableau or roiPE;
• Ability to manage projects, coordinate multiple critical initiatives, and move swiftly in order to achieve the objectives required;
• Experience in understanding the drivers between the demand plan and financial targets, including drivers within these targets, and a set of risks & opportunities as provided by Commercial to close this gap;
• Skills to contribute in a fact-based way in a cross-functional team environment where key stakeholders may have different points of view;
• Strong collaboration skills;
• Detail oriented, but also able to rationalize the aggregate outputs.

 

Preferred qualifications:

 

• Minimum of 6 years of forecasting experience in the consumer product, consumer health, CPG or OTC industry;
• APICS Certification preferred; IBF CPF Certif