Demand Planning Manager

The Demand Planning Manager will ensure the business has the right stock, in the right place, at the right time while balancing customer availability, service levels, inventory and working capital.

The successful candidate must have hands-on experience using RELEX within a demand planning, forecasting or replenishment environment.

Working closely with Commercial, Sales, Supply Chain, Procurement, Operations and Finance, you will lead the development of a robust consensus demand plan and play a key role within the wider S&OP / IBP process.

Key Responsibilities

Demand Planning & Forecasting

Own and develop the end-to-end demand planning process across the business.

Produce accurate short, medium and long-term demand forecasts across a large and complex SKU portfolio.

Analyse historical sales, customer demand, seasonality, market trends and promotional activity to develop robust forecasts.

Manage forecasting across multiple products, categories, customers and channels.

Continuously monitor and improve forecast accuracy and forecast bias.

Identify significant changes in demand and ensure these are communicated effectively across the wider supply chain.

Challenge assumptions and ensure commercial forecasts are supported by appropriate data.

Manage demand volatility within a fast-moving FMCG environment.

Ensure demand plans are appropriately translated into supply and inventory requirements.

RELEX

The Demand Planning Manager will act as a key user of RELEX and will be expected to maximise the capability of the system across forecasting, planning and replenishment.

Responsibilities will include:

Using RELEX to create, analyse and maintain demand forecasts.

Reviewing system-generated forecasts and applying appropriate commercial intelligence and overrides.

Managing forecasting parameters and identifying opportunities to improve system performance.

Analysing exceptions and investigating significant forecast variances.

Using RELEX data to support inventory and replenishment decisions.

Improving utilisation of RELEX across the planning function.

Developing reporting and KPIs from RELEX to provide greater visibility of demand performance.

Supporting continuous improvement and optimisation of planning processes within the system.

Coaching and developing team members in effective RELEX usage.

Previous hands-on RELEX experience is essential for this position.

S&OP / IBP

Play a key role in the monthly Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) process.

Develop and present the consensus demand plan.

Work closely with Commercial and Sales teams to understand future demand, customer activity and market changes.

Ensure promotional activity, NPD, customer wins/losses and seasonal demand are incorporated into the forecast.

Challenge unrealistic commercial assumptions using data and historical performance.

Highlight potential supply constraints, inventory risks and service implications.

Provide senior stakeholders with clear analysis around demand changes and business risks.

Help drive greater cross-functional ownership of forecast accuracy.

Inventory & Availability

Work closely with Supply Planning, Procurement and Operations to ensure demand plans support appropriate inventory levels and product availability.

Key areas will include:

Stock availability

Inventory optimisation

Safety-stock requirements

Stock-outs

Excess inventory

Slow-moving and obsolete stock

Working capital

Service levels

Promotional stock

Seasonal inventory

Product lifecycle management

The Demand Planning Manager will continually seek opportunities to improve availability while reducing unnecessary inventory investment.

Promotional & Seasonal Planning

Operating within FMCG, the role will manage significant fluctuations in demand created by promotions, seasonality and changing customer behaviour.

Responsibilities include:

Building promotional forecasts.

Analysing previous promotional performance.

Working with Commercial teams to understand planned activity.

Identifying potential demand uplifts and associated supply requirements.

Measuring promotional forecast accuracy.

Conducting post-event analysis.

Applying learnings to future promotional activity.

NPD & Product Lifecycle Management

Incorporate new product introductions into the demand plan.

Develop initial forecasts for new products where limited historical data exists.

Work closely with Commercial, Marketing and Supply Chain teams around product launches.

Monitor early sales performance against forecast.

Manage demand implications associated with product transitions and delisting.

Minimise obsolete inventory when products are discontinued or replaced.

Ensure appropriate stock is available to support successful product launches.

Team Leadership

Depending on the structure of the business, the Demand Planning Manager will lead and develop a team of Demand Planners / Forecasting Analysts.

Responsibilities will include:

Setting objectives and KPIs.

Coaching and developing team members.

Improving analytical and forecasting capability.

Creating a high-performance planning culture.

Ensuring consistent planning processes are followed.

Developing RELEX capability across the team.

Providing clear ownership and accountability for forecast performance.

Key KPIs

Performance will typically be measured against:

Forecast accuracy

Forecast bias

Customer service / OTIF

Product availability

Stock-outs

Inventory value

Inventory turns

Days of inventory

Excess stock

Slow-moving and obsolete inventory

Promotional forecast accuracy

NPD forecast performance

Working capital

RELEX forecast/system performance

Experience Required

The successful candidate will ideally have:

Significant experience within Demand Planning / Forecasting, ideally at Demand Planning Manager or Senior Demand Planner level.

A strong background within FMCG, food & beverage, consumer goods, retail, wholesale or another high-volume environment.

Hands-on RELEX experience - essential.

Experience managing complex, high-volume and multi-SKU product portfolios.

Strong understanding of demand forecasting methodologies.

Experience within an S&OP / IBP environment.

Strong understanding of inventory management and replenishment.

Experience managing promotional and seasonal demand.

Experience forecasting NPD and managing product lifecycles.

Strong understanding of forecast accuracy and bias.

Experience working closely with Commercial and Sales teams.

Advanced analytical and Excel capability.

Strong ERP / planning systems experience.

Power BI or similar reporting experience would be advantageous.

Previous team leadership experience is highly desirable.

Candidate Profile

The ideal candidate will be an experienced FMCG Demand Planning Manager who combines strong analytical capability with the commercial awareness required to operate in a fast-moving consumer environment.

You will be comfortable challenging Sales and Commercial stakeholders, using data to influence decisions and translating large volumes of information into a clear and actionable demand plan.

Crucially, you will have proven hands-on RELEX experience and understand how to use the system to improve forecasting, replenishment, inventory and planning performance.

We are particularly interested in candidates who can demonstrate measurable improvements such as:

Increasing forecast accuracy

Reducing forecast bias

Improving product availability / OTIF

Reducing stock-outs

Reducing excess and obsolete inventory

Releasing working capital

Improving inventory turns

Improving promotional forecast accuracy

Successfully implementing or optimising RELEX

Developing a more effective S&OP process