Planner

Merchandise Planner

• Merchandise Planner serves as the business manager for a book of business and is primarily responsible for translating the Merchants vision into viable plans and profitable results.
• The Planner is responsible for developing and maintaining sales, inventory and margin plans that tie to financial targets for an assigned Sub-Brand or Category.
• Plans will begin at the Sub-Brand or Category level and will drive to choice-level (Style/Color) plans, creating targeted assortments by cluster of stores with similar selling characteristics.
• In partnership with the Merchant, the Planner drives to additional value through optimizing the assortment for these store clusters.
• In collaboration with the Demand Forecaster, the Merchandise Planner generates demand plans, which incorporate statistically-based forecasts, merchandise plans and business knowledge.
• Demand plans provide the basis for future merchandise plans, as well as a forward-looking expectation of sales to inform the distribution process.

Your Impact:

Pre-Season

• Build and refine a class/sub-class plan based on guidance from Category and Attribute plans created by Strategic Planning - the class/sub-brand plan is a weekly dollar and unit merchandise plan by class, sub-brand and potentially subclass.
• Partner with Merchants to create and maintain a seasonal theme-based assortment list and volume targets by store grouping (format, cluster, etc).
• Develop assortment plans for sales, margin and inventory to the style/choice level by store groupings (cluster/format, etc) in support of productivity and financial targets.
• Use demand forecast, pattern after items, targets from attribute and category plans, test results and historical trends.
• Incorporate impact of events and entrance/exit strategies.
• Propose initial and promotional pricing by item.
• Participate in consensus planning with demand planner; collaborate to drive to one number sales plan with recommendations for events, based on class plan and forecast.
• Communicate merchandise plans to other functional groups as follows:
• Logistics for their review from a capacity standpoint. Information gained is then reconciled with the plan; issues reviewed and discussed together.
• Finance to inform their rolling business plan; together review and discuss any related issues.
• Stores to inform their labor estimates.
• Compliance to inform of possible categories for new product quality, testing and regulatory considerations.
• Customer Marketing to give strategic direction for the development/refinement of their seasonal campaign plans.
• Support the Sales & Operations Planning process by assisting in the preparation of materials for purposes of evaluating and resolving supply/demand imbalances.
• Identify test candidates that fit with merchandise strategy.

In-Season

• Analyze and reflect current trends in performance of strategy based on actual sales performance; revise in-season plans for sales and profitability, control inventory levels.
• Partner with Merchant to develop and propose tactics in response to current business trends.
• Manage and execute promotional and liquidation strategy.
• Manage the assortment to approved inventory targets.
• Communicate revisions both within the team and cross functionally.
• Work with Demand Forecaster to formulate alternate event options.
• Actively manage inventory levels pulling up, pushing back or cancelling orders; and by working with Inventory Deployment to recommend reorders.

Reporting/Analytics

• Analyze performance for area of responsibility relative to performance of plan and trend for both period and season sales, margin and inventory.
• Prepare recommendations and alternatives for key financial meetings/decisions in order to maximize sales and margin and optimize inventory productivity, in partnership with Merchant.
• Perform trade-off analysis on impact of new items to the assortment identified at a sub-brand level and provide financial planning recommendations.

Integration Points

• Partner with Strategic Planning to inform, reconcile and revise financial targets based on the category and attribute plans.
• Participate in consensus planning with Demand Forecasters; collaborate to drive to one number plan and recommendations for event modeling.
• Partner with Inventory Deployment to establish and implement short- and long-term inventory management objectives and review order quantities.
• Work with cross-functional partners to make informed decisions on promotional events and season planning, exit strategies, new item launches and collections; provide recommendations in response to financial targets.
• Assist Merchandising, Logistics and Production to optimize flow of goods from suppliers to warehouses, distribution agents and fulfillment centers.
• Work with demand forecasting to improve reliability through demand plan accuracy.
• Integrate with Space Planning to represent the opportunities and constraints that the physical environment creates at store level, monitor results from tests, launches and edits.

Your Experience:

• 5-7 years of retail planning, demand forecasting experience, inventory management, allocation, assortment planning, or replenishment experience, financial planning or financial analysis experience.
• Bachelor s degree in finance, operations, economics, business, statistics.
• Requires strong problem-solving and analytical skills; strong aptitude with numbers; retail math skills.
• Strong technical skills in Microsoft Excel or related planning, finance or analytical systems.
• Experienced in data management systems, like JDA Enterprise Software Enterprise Planning suite.
• Merchant or merchandising experience a plus.
• Positive business influence skills.
• Able to identify and influence critical stakeholders, proactively problem solve, and recommend solutions.
• Strong communication and presentation skills: concisely presents complex information and recommendations in terms meaningful to a variety of audiences.
• Demonstrated leadership capability and executive presence.
• Optimization Mindset - designs and develops models/plans to optimize decisions.
• Builds collaborative partnerships cross-functionally; identifies/influences critical stakeholders.
• Ability to articulate detailed action plans to successfully accomplish goal.
• Understands and executes against business strategy and goals.
• Makes decisions with limited information but also able to synthesize large quantities of data to drive business decisions.
• Ability to meet deadlines and handle multiple tasks/projects.

TekWissen Group is an equal opportunity employer supporting workforce diversity.