Demand Planner in Balerno

Salary Range: £35,000 - £45,000

Location: Balerno, Edinburgh

Hours: Monday to Thursday 08:45am – 5:00pm, Friday 08:45am – 03:45pm

ABOUT THE ROLE

Do you enjoy having a plan for everything down to the most miniscule detail? Do you get deja vu on the regular? Do you get “hunches” about how things will go, or can you even see the future in detail? Do you dream about excel and pivot tables? Is your favourite movie Minority Report, Dune or Back to the Future despite no one else around you getting what is happening? Well, we get it. And we love it. We are looking for someone like you… so have a seat while we tell you about an opportunity to take your obsession with prescience and analytics into your professional life.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Take responsibility for developing and maintaining rolling demand forecasts across all products and sales channels, using a combination of historical data, commercial insight, promotions and seasonal trends.
• Run the company’s monthly demand review process, ensuring forecasts are aligned across sales, marketing, finance and operations before being communicated to the wider business.
• Work closely with commercial teams to ensure demand forecasts reflect the latest sales activity, marketing campaigns, new product launches and customer growth plans.
• Identify potential demand spikes, supply risks or stock constraints early and work cross‑functionally to mitigate potential service issues.
• Analyse demand patterns and performance to improve forecast accuracy and provide the business with meaningful insight into demand trends and risks.
• Support the development of Unicorn’s demand planning capability as the business grows, improving forecasting tools, processes, and systems.
• Manage replenishment via monthly ladder plan updates & tracking.
• Manage open-to-buy & cash flow forecast.
• Manage product sales reporting.
• Building buy plans for our different inventory pools and suppliers to ensure we have the right inventory in the right place at the right time.
• Give visibility into our current inventory levels.
• Identify opportunities to rebalance inventories so that we can drive more sales.
• Work with our finance group to plan cash flow.
• Provide advice and insight to our Warehouse Lead.
• Support SKU performance reporting and merchandising decisions.
• Analyse historical demand and trends and use latest customer or market intelligence to construct a forecast that can be used to support the raising of Purchase Orders.
• Interpret and validate customer intake and forecast plans to ensure Purchase Orders are raised in line with actual requirements.
• Communicate with sales teams and management to ensure weekly updates of potential issues.
• Produce and communicate accurate customer and vendor stock, sales & forecast reports.
• Highlight any stock issues in a timely manner to ensure that aged stock is kept to a minimum and ensure timely identification and movement of surplus plant stock.
• Generate and seek approval of purchase orders, placement and progression of purchase orders.
• Analyse purchase orders and compare current inventory to prevent future aged stock issues.

WHAT YOU’LL BRING

• May or may not have a degree...we don’t care.
• 3-5 years of experience with planning and forecasting. Consumer products are a plus.
• Proficiency on a Mac (honestly, even better if you tell us Mac’s are crap and you’re all PC all the time because that’s how OPS rolls).
• Proficiency in Excel. When we say proficiency on excel, we mean it. Like you could sell tickets and people would come watch you perform.
• Detail oriented, doesn’t every job description say this?
• Be proactive! Know how to google a question to solve a problem.
• Must have a good attitude and not afraid to ask questions.
• Owning a unicorn or golden retriever is a big plus.
• Love getting and giving feedback.
• Is into personal growth beyond your job.

WHAT YOU’LL GET

• Pay check, duh.
• To be part of a company that’s fun and growing quickly.
• Cycle to work scheme.
• Employee discount.
• On-site gym.
• On-site parking.

HOW TO APPLY

Please send the following to kip@unicorn-inc.co:

• Your CV, of course.
• Cover letter showing us the human behind the computer. Please don’t send a corporate-speak, AI generated letter. We want to learn more about you and why you think you’re a great fit for the role.
• And a drawing of a Unicorn. Yep, we’re serious. We don’t care if it’s a work of art or a scribble, but if you don’t include it, we don’t look at your CV!