Demand Planner (12 Month FTC - Mat. Cover)

The role of the Demand Planner requires a highly meticulous, commercially rounded, organised planner, to take immediate ownership of sales planning activities. Reporting directly to the Supply and Demand Planning Manager, this role carries a significant degree of authority, autonomy, and organisation, as you become responsible for the planning of our sales.

Working closely with the Sales, Marketing, Customer Service and Finance teams, you shall develop statistical forecasts and challenge them with a collaborative approach, to ensure forecast accuracy and balance market demand with supply, capacity and organisational budgeted targets. Accordingly, your work requires tight, cross functional collaboration with local and remote Sales teams across our different routes to market (Brompton Junction stores, Ecommerce, retailers and distributors) as well as our internal supply and production planning teams. Being capable of building and maintaining effective and trusting relationships is therefore paramount in this pivotal position.

Brompton operates a lean manufacturing policy and bikes are produced to order, all year round. There is vast reliance upon suppliers to deliver parts on time. You must work closely with the Supply & Production Planners to provide reliable forecasting for the different Product families and their relevant pBoMs (Planning Bill of Materials). You will need to be able to evolve with our new systems, by integrating current tools and processes within the ERP environment. Therefore, problem solving and continuous improvement shall be key feature of your role.

This is a role for someone who wants to roll their sleeves up and get stuck in and who is keen to learn the full breadth of our company’s activities and products, who is ready to progress in a role they are already sure-footed in, and who is excited by the potential of a long-term commitment to this fast-growing British success story.

The Person

The successful candidate will be able to remain confident when dealing with difficult situations and encourage others to have ideas and create new creative solutions to problems. They will encourage others to effectively and efficiently communicate at a level that is understood by all involved in project planning and develop a culture of participation. The person occupying this role should always remain rational when dealing with strong characters, ensure they work within organisational requirements, be systematic and factual when dealing with colleagues and handle all challenges in an accommodating manner and use practicality as a method for reaching a solution. The person will need to be able to develop a team atmosphere through hard work and consistency.

The ideal person must focus on results and willingly tackle various problems which may hinder the achievement of their objectives and bring a sense of urgency to situations, demonstrate an active approach, be willing to get involved to increase the pace at which issues are progressed and complete projects on time. The person occupying this role should have the drive to achieve results in a friendly manner but at the same time maintain quality and standards. The job holder will have specialist skills and will work within an area of expertise. They will be good communicators, enjoy challenging situations and take a systematic approach to problems. The ideal person will be positive, participative, self-confident, friendly, self-starting, inquisitive, imaginative, factual, consistent, and self-disciplined. Activity, mobility, flexibility, variety and pace are equally important aspects within the function.

Main Responsibilities

• Forecasting & Demanding Planning

Support account and territory managers in preparing their collaborative forecasts. Develop and maintain statistical forecast of bikes and their relevant planning Bill of Materials, in line with market consumption. Secure monthly statistical and collaborative review of forecast. Update forecast and allocation weekly across our systems (Garvis/ ERP). Improve monthly forecast accuracy, working with Customers, Sales, Marketing and Customer Service. Manage the finished goods inventory to ensure continuity of fast-moving lines whilst achieving targets for inventory levels and performance of priority categories. Developing and challenging market sales data in line with market trends, always looking for opportunities to grow specific product families. Participating in sales meetings, gathering feedback regarding global demand and feeding it through Planning and Operations department.

• Sales & Operations Planning

Actively participate in S&OP (Sales and Operations Planning) process steps 1 and 2 (Demand creation and Demand review) to ensure the accuracy of the forecast. Coordinate new product launches and range reviews with Sales and Product Development teams to ensure successful deployment into market. Ensure successful completion of bike demand related S&OP actions. Maintain forecast/allocation in line with latest sales estimations for subsidiaries, while challenging sales team on maintaining a lean stock/transit of finished goods.

• Others

Prepare a variety of status reports in Excel and Word. Contribute to continuous improvement of systems and processes.

Personal Requirements

A positive, can-do attitude is essential for working at Brompton. Autonomous. Highly numerate and logical thinker. Strong organisational and Problem-solving skills. Market aware and commercially focussed.

Skills And Experience

Degree in Supply Chain or Business with forecasting track. Experience in operations, demand planning, forecasting or business analytics is preferred. Must have excellent Microsoft Excel and analytical skills. Experience working with ERP (ideally Infor CSI) is preferred. Experience working with CRM is preferred. Fluent English communication skills - both verbal and written, with a confident and professional manner. Knowledge of Supply Chain models, Forecasting, S&OP, Capacity Planning. Power BI experience is a plus, although not essential.