WHAT DOES A BUSINESS PLANNING MANAGER DO?
The Business Planning Manager ensures accurate forecasting and inventory management to optimize end customer service levels and operational efficiency. Through proactive communication and collaboration with sales, marketing, and project management teams, strategic adjustments are made to align with dynamic market conditions and company objectives. This role also champions the company's mission by fostering an environment that promotes teamwork, effective communication, and respect across all levels of the organization.
A Review of Professional Skills and Functions for Business Planning Manager
1. Business Planning Manager Duties
- Financial Planning: Prepare and implement fiscal and long-term plan with analysis
- Project Management: Take the lead on managing new projects
- Sales Management: Manage sales and profitability by controlling pricing
- Sales Analysis: Investigate sales results for deviations from plan and propose actions
- Problem Solving: Tackle various problems together with the leadership team
- Negotiation: Negotiate with vendors to achieve the best price and other supports
- Communication: Prepare materials for relevant meetings with stakeholders
- Request Management: Prepare factory support requests and claim requests
- Inventory Management: Define in-store inventory targets and achieve availability standards and timing
- Market Analysis: Understand the market, sales, and stock situation to propose promotions and pricing
2. Business Planning Manager Details
- Stakeholder Communication: Prepare village communications to external and internal stakeholders
- Investor Relations: Draft regular investor reports and annual board meeting materials
- Market Research: Gather information on pertinent market trends and competitive insights
- Strategic Collaboration: Collaborate with the Finance Department on strategic planning and budgeting
- Data Analysis: Conduct data analysis and fact-finding to help answer key strategic questions for the leadership team
- Leadership: Lead efforts to develop business and financial plans that enable the execution of business strategies
- Project Leadership: Lead business planning initiatives, including M&A integration projects at a regional or business unit level
- Business Partnership: Partner with business management on a wide range of business issues
- Project Management: Manage the development of project guidelines, plans, objectives, and deliverables
- Innovation: Provide innovative recommendations and influence the knowledge base within the area of expertise
3. Business Planning Manager Responsibilities
- Document Management: Collect key project documents into the SharePoint System
- Issue Tracking: Track commercial issue status and report updates to the function head
- Information Support: Support the function head in collecting other daily base information and updating
- Budget Management: Support the function head to manage yearly budget updates and variance analysis
- Market Analysis: Update Lear market share information from each plant's sales on a yearly basis
- Process Management: Collect each customer's annual saving proposal (LTA) and manage the internal approval process
- Project Tracking: Track new project pursuits status and update new awards and losses in the Salesforce system
- Team Leadership: Manage, mentor, and coach a team to drive business development activities and regularly report on progress
- Strategic Planning: Support the function head to manage the 5-year Long Range Plan (LRP) update and variance analysis on a yearly basis
4. Business Planning Manager Accountabilities
- Performance Reporting: Prepare periodic updates, commentaries, and forecasts of business performance
- Financial Analysis: Prepare, develop, and analyze key financial information and business statistics
- Decision Support: Provide insights and support business decision-making for optimal performance
- Project Management: Participate in and handle ad hoc projects, reporting, and analysis
- Cross-functional Coordination: Coordinate and manage cross-functional projects and workgroups
- Model Development: Develop business models and analyses to support new/strategic initiatives
- Initiative Execution: Determine and execute key business initiatives that will drive business operations
- Operational Support: Assist management in operations, resource management, annual budgeting exercise, revenue accounting, etc.
- Solution Development: Understand business direction and needs and develop solutions, roadmaps, and assessment of potential business impacts
- Pilot Leadership: Lead trials concerning new business initiatives, pilot programs, and rollouts, and based on results, makes, recommends, and implements adjustments and modifications
- Performance Analysis: Monitor performance indicators, highlighting trends and analyzing causes of unexpected variances
- Strategic Planning: Assist in developing strategic business and product plans by analyzing trends and forecasts, and consultation with internal stakeholders
5. Business Planning Manager Functions
- Relationship Management: Maintain relationships with research and data providers
- Trend Analysis: Define and analyze consumer and retail trends across major markets
- Data Interpretation: Translate analysis into meaningful takeaways to support the project narrative
- Project Leadership: Lead analyses and projects cross-CPGP and for assigned LOBs or Franchises as assigned under the guidance of the Sr Manager, Business Planning
- Presentation Development: Create compelling presentation materials to communicate recommendations to senior-level executives
- Industry Research: Evaluate important industry trends, including through third-party research
- Partner Relations: Develop relationships with partners across the Company
- Strategic Management: Manage elements of CPGP's annual strategic planning process with oversight from Sr Manager, Business Planning
- Product Strategy: Define future product/SKU roadmap and portfolio through market/competitor/sales analyses
- 4P Strategy Leadership: Lead and own 4P strategies (product, pricing, place, promotion) and P&L for the Consumer business
6. Business Planning Manager Overview
- Process Improvement: Drive process improvement projects and other ad-hoc projects
- Value Analysis: Able to use SKU/Brand PL to drive the right conversation on value creation
- Financial Reporting: Ensure true and fair reporting of financials via the monthly closing process
- Supervision: Supervise the Business Planning Manager to manage and drive the company's agenda
- Regulatory Compliance: Committed to respecting specific rules to comply with the WHO Code of Breast Milk Substitutes and any related regulations applying locally
- Financial Analysis: Support business decision-making by leading brand profitability analysis, financial evaluation for new initiatives (NPDs), pricing analysis, etc.
- Budget Management: Perform variance analysis of actuals, rolling forecast of advertising and promotion budget, control of budget given
- Margin Improvement: Improve margins for the organization, advise the Marketing Director to redeploy resources to the right brand
- Market Research: Work closely with the Marketing team to provide market analysis and feasibility analysis to grow the top line across online and offline by conducting market research
7. Business Planning Manager Tasks
- Business Modeling: Apply manpower models, sales forecasts, and business insights
- Budget Management: Drive decisions on headcount budgets for timely preparation of customer service teams
- Cost Analysis: Link operational staffing requirements to top-down cost targets to create insight into the profitability of the service business
- Process Improvement: Continuously improve and adapt the manpower planning process and headcount models using feedback and actuals, to support the business in correct decision-making
- Workforce Planning: Maintain workforce plans, progress demand, and enable recruitment within budget and headcount
- Strategic Development: Shape the evolution of Strategic Business Planning for the organization, including Go-to-Market and Measurement Plans
- Collaboration: Collaborate closely with Subject Matter Experts within the Customer Experience Excellence (CEE) team
- Communication: Communicate various aspects of the planning standards, including new areas of strategic or executional focus
- Strategic Coordination: Coordinate CS strategic and tactical headcount planning across all stakeholders within ASML for the long and short term
- Capacity Planning: Define different capacity schemes regarding scenarios of system sales and technical performance of the product
8. Business Planning Manager Roles
- Strategic Alignment: Align on company annual top objectives, monthly status, risks, and mitigation strategies
- Presentation Preparation: Prepare presentations and other key materials for the CEO, Chief of Staff, and ELT
- Meeting Facilitation: Facilitate monthly business review meetings with the Executive Leadership Team
- Financial Review: Review company financial performance and top objective achievement and answer key questions regarding investment decisions, resource allocation, and prioritization management
- Meeting Management: Operationalize key decisions from monthly business review into Executive Leadership Team meeting management including CEO staff meeting, ELT strategy discussions
- Project Management: Drive completion of critical deliverables across multiple ELT members including Board of Director materials, key investor meetings, M&A activity, etc.
- Team Leadership: Lead cross-functional teams to ensure strategic planning milestones are completed on time and to agreed standards
- Process Enforcement: Enforce rigor around the strategic planning process (supporting the 3-year business planning cycle)
- Customer Representation: Represent the customer and their needs in key cross-tribe forums so that customer-focused activities are prioritized effectively
- Planning Support: Provide planning support on customer tribe-led activities such as cross-functional plans to drive improvements to customer pillars
9. Business Planning Manager Additional Details
- KPI Management: Design and operationalize company-wide KPI management approach
- Tool Development: Provide leadership with scalable tools to enhance visibility and accountability
- Capacity Planning Ownership: Own the long-term capacity planning function for the business
- Strategic Influence: Serve as a key influencer and strategic decision maker with the ability to provide guidance to the Senior Leadership Team
- Data Management: Analyze and manage data to provide multiple scenarios where necessary
- Strategic Support: Work closely with senior management to help deliver on strategic company objectives
- Strategic Direction: Drive the strategic direction of capacity planning (long-term), staff solutions strategy, and geographic diversification
- Model Creation: Create the best capacity planning model by managing trade-offs between Customer Experience, Employee Experience, Operational Flexibility, Business Continuity, and Cost Effectiveness
- Collaboration: Work closely with Forecasting & Workforce Managers to understand the long-term goals of clients
- Dashboard Development: Develop key performance indicators dashboard, track key trends in lagging/leading metrics, and synthesize implications to the business
10. Business Planning Manager Essential Functions
- Impact Analysis: Identify decision impacts for people and teams internally and externally.
- Review Processes: Review history, statistical, and enrichment alerts within the division.
- Forecast Adjustment: Adjust the item-level forecast based on established processes.
- Communication: Communicate these adjustments to the planning team in a proactive manner.
- Cross-functional Collaboration: Collaborate with sales, marketing, and project managers to obtain forecasts and manage one direct report.
- Issue Identification: Identify and tactfully address organizational and business issues that are less apparent to department leaders but require an end-to-end view of how work gets done.
- Strategic Follow-up: Follow-up on strategic opportunities and initiatives to ensure appropriate operationalization and execution.
- Demand Planning Leadership: Lead the detailed item-level demand planning function for Henkel's Packaging & Consumer Goods division.
- Forecast Management: Ensure forecast accuracy, end customer service level, and inventory turns along with conducting demand reviews that support sales and operations planning.
- Cultural Support: Support the company’s culture and business mission by promoting communication, teamwork, and the respectful treatment of all individuals.