Demand and Supply Planning Manager

JOB TITLE: Demand and Supply Planning Manager for Ice Cream Business

LOCATION: Malaysia

Who You Are And What You'll Do

The main objective of the role is to lead the demand and supply planning for the assigned business unit. The role manages and ensures service level delivery, business waste reduction, inventory optimization, and innovation planning.

The role is expected to partner with the Business Unit (BU) and the Customer Development Teams to build an integrated forecast through the S&OP process and deliver the BU JTBD (job-to-be-done).

Lastly, the role is expected to drive cross-functional collation not only within Customer Operations but across other supply chain and business functions, as well, to drive end-to-end efficiency and operational excellence.

Key Responsibilities

Demand Planning

• Leading the demand planning process for all Malaysia & Singapore-based verticals.
• Sales analysis and understanding key trends.
• Ensuring 24-month rolling forecast is available and is communicated to all sourcing units through different IT systems for operational planning purposes.
• Consolidating demands from other business centres.
• Preparing a long-term forecast (5-year horizon), taking inputs from the business on long-term growth ambitions and submitting the same to the category Supply Chain teams for capacity planning.
• Work closely with the network planners to build innovation forecast into the demand plan.
• Drive collaborative forecasting with top customers.
• Ensure all master data is in place for uploading demand in different systems.
  
  

Operational Supply Planning

• Liaising regularly with sourcing units to review supply plans against customer forecasts and orders.
• Consolidating supply plans from all sourcing units and sharing the same with the customer service teams.
• Attending regular Regional Category Demand and Supply Reconciliation or Rough-Cut Capacity Planning meetings and identifying short-term capacity constraints, highlighting these to the business and providing contingency plans.
• Preparing the loss-tree analysis for all the non-supplied orders.
• Reviewing KPIs with the sourcing units at the end of each planning cycle.
• Monitoring and leading the offshore supply planning operations.
  
  

Sales and Operations Planning

• Driving Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) process in the business (starting from identifying gaps in forecasts vs. targets, orders vs. forecasts and then finally supply vs. orders).
• Reconciling demand and supply by working closely with the sourcing units and providing a constrained demand plan based on the inputs received.
• Ensuring unconstrained and constrained demands are loaded in Anaplan regularly.
• Working with finance on the cash up process.
  
  

Inventory planning

• Defining the planning strategies at a “customer-sourcing unit-SKU” level based on forecast and replenishment strategy (make-to-order vs. make-to-forecast).
• Defining stock-holding principles for the make-to-forecast Stock Keeping Units (SKUs).
• Defining stock replenishment guidelines and ordering frequency based on different planning cycles for each sourcing unit.
• Monitoring days-on-hand against target and identifying improvement opportunities.
• Managing slow-moving and obsolete stocks (SLOB) by highlighting slow and non-moving stocks to the business to generate appropriate actions.
  
  

Sourcing Network Optimization

• Sign off the Unilever sourcing strategy with the supply chain team / Long-term capacity planning.
• Work closely with BU Supply Chain and LTCP teams in unlocking capacity and optimizing sourcing strategies.
  
  

Capacity Interlocking to support business growth

• Interlocking of up to 24-month capacity (medium-term) with the sourcing units and cluster product group Supply Chain based on forecast agreed in the Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) meeting.
• Interlock 2-5 years capacity (long-term) with the SC team.
• Identify Unilever-driven CapEx requirements based on discussions with Supply Chain team and share these to the business and finance teams for appropriate evaluation and underwriting.
  
  

Systems And Capabilities

• Rolling out key IT systems like Anaplan to help in demand and Kinaxis for supply planning activities.
• Working with IT business partners to drive automation in the areas of demand and supply communication between different IT landscapes.
• Centralizing plan capability.
  
  

Performance Management

• Driving accountability and process improvement based on key performance metrics such as Forecast Error and Bias and Demand Hygiene.
  
  

Team Structure

• Reporting to: BUs Planning Lead
• Direct reports: Demand and Supply Planners
• Indirect reports: Supply Planners
  
  

Internal

KEY STAKEHOLDERS:

• Other members of the Customer Development Leadership Team
• Regional BU Teams
• Customer Strategy and Planning team
• Customer Development Operations team
• Supply Chain & Finance business partners
• Sourcing Units
  
  

External

• Distributor partners
• Modern Trade (MT) customers (Local MT, Petromart, Convenient)
• Collaborative Manufacturers (CM)
  
  

Travel

The role is based in Malaysia. Singapore will be managed remotely.

Essential Experience / Skill / Knowledge

• Business experience in demand and supply chain planning, preferably within the FMCG industry
• Knowledgeable in S&OP process
• Strong business-partnering and proven track record is a must
• Proven people management capabilities.
  
  

Desirable Experience / Skill / Knowledge

• Demand forecasting and Supply Planning
• Innovation / New Product Development Project Management
• Inventory Optimization
• Process improvement experience
  
  

Unilever is an organisation committed to equity, inclusion and diversity to drive our business results and create a better future, every day, for our diverse employees, global consumers, partners, and communities. We believe a diverse workforce allows us to match our growth ambitions and drive inclusion across the business. At Unilever we are interested in every individual bringing their ‘Whole Self’ to work and this includes you! Thus if you require any support or access requirements, we encourage you to advise us at the time of your application so that we can support you through your recruitment journey.