WHAT DOES A DEMAND PLANNING ANALYST DO?

Published: Oct 14, 2024 – The Demand Planning Analyst executes the Supply and Demand Planning process to enhance communication and accountability across departments. This role involves collaborating with various teams to adjust demand forecasts based on market trends and internal factors while leading the development of demand plans. Additionally, the analyst interprets data, creates BI tools for the Culinary Team, and presents strategic recommendations to senior management to optimize operational efficiencies and improve forecast accuracy.

A Review of Professional Skills and Functions for Demand Planning Analyst

1. Demand Planning Analyst Responsibilities

  • AI Adoption Improvement: Work on improving the adoption of the AI forecast (Artificial Intelligence) into the planning process.
  • Liaison Coordination: Act as a liaison between markets and supply chain analytics to continuously improve the accuracy of the AI model.
  • Tool Development: Enhance and develop new tools and reports to improve efficiency and effectiveness.
  • Forecast Accuracy Monitoring: Monitor and analyze forecast accuracy data monthly.
  • Data Champion: Maintain forecasting tools and processes and be the data champion for SAP planning data.
  • Reporting and Analysis: Provide reporting, modeling, and analysis for demand forecasting and production planning as well as sales and performance trends.
  • Demand Planning Support: Assist the broader demand planning team to achieve optimum forecast accuracy for a 24-month horizon.
  • IBP Process Implementation: Support the implementation of the IBP process through SAP and Excel.
  • Ad-Hoc Reporting: Take responsibility for ad-hoc reporting and analysis.
  • Ongoing Analysis Preparation: Prepare ongoing analysis to include share/growth trends, promotion effectiveness, pricing, distribution recap, and new item tracking.
  • Internal Coordination: Coordinate internally with the Sales, Inventory and Operations Planning Team, Order Entry, Greenhouse Operations, and Transportation to ensure successful product flows.
  • Merchandising Influence: Influence the success of merchandising teams through the communication of incoming orders and corresponding sales reports by store.

2. Demand Planning Analyst Job Summary

  • Materials Purchase Planning: Support materials purchase planning for the corporate forecasting and budget process by working closely with Procurement, Regional Planning, and Financial Planning and Analysis.
  • Supply Plan Coordination: Coordinate supply plans for new installations and upgrades based on product life cycle planning and engineering certification schedules.
  • Inventory Level Management: Work closely with PMO and operational teams to determine the correct inventory levels of required maintenance items at airline locations.
  • KPI Development: Develop and report inventory KPIs to supply chain leadership.
  • Receipt Coordination: Coordinate with procurement to ensure that the timing of receipts meets the demand schedule and that receipts are adjusted where needed.
  • Process Optimization: Continually review processes and systems to identify opportunities to minimize wasteful spending and optimize resources.
  • Priority Management: Manage multiple priorities and deadlines without sacrificing accuracy and quality.
  • Financial Statement Collaboration: Work with the accounting team to ensure completeness of the monthly financial statements and variance explanations.
  • Sales Reporting: Maintain, develop, and provide detailed sales and forecasting reporting on a daily/weekly/monthly basis to communicate with the sales teams, both on a standardized and ad hoc basis.
  • Category Insights: Provide category insights and opportunities through analytics and category planning.
  • Forecast Collaboration: Collaborate with sales, new product development, and others from the supply chain team to develop forecasts and budgets.
  • Replenishment Analysis: Perform replenishment analyses resulting in the creation of accurate vendor-managed retail orders that align with the outlined budget and item metric goals.

3. Demand Planning Analyst Accountabilities

  • Demand Planning Assistance: Responsible for assisting in the Food Division North America Demand Planning function.
  • Demand Plan Development: Play a key part in developing a short-term and long-term demand plan through the Sales and Operation Planning/IBP process and utilizing key metrics to measure the success of the plan.
  • Forecast Analysis: Perform forecast analysis for assigned customer accounts and product categories in SAP APO.
  • Performance Tracking: Track and monitor actual performance versus forecast and provide analysis and recommendations.
  • Trend Identification: Partner with sales and sales planning to identify trends and manage cost-specific issues, integrate promo calendar and new items into the Sales and Operation Planning process.
  • Sales and Operation Planning Leadership: Lead the demand planning phase of the Sales and Operation Planning process and function as a team member of the Sales and Operation Planning process.
  • Customer Scorecard Maintenance: Maintain customer scorecard measuring forecast accuracy, service metrics, and total sales vs. established goals.
  • Capacity Management: Collaborate cross-functionally in managing capacity requests.
  • NPD Support: Support NPD supply chain activity in collaborating demand volume from the sales team and post-launch measurement activity.
  • Statistical Monitoring: Continuously monitor statistical forecast models to ensure the best fit is being utilized.
  • KPI Reporting: Prepare accurate and timely reports and analyses of SCM KPIs and delivery fulfillment.
  • Forecast Improvement: Drive improvement to forecast accuracy per SKU, role model collaborative forecasting, and lead change.

4. Demand Planning Analyst Functions

  • Anaplan Optimization: Drive Anaplan adoption and optimization as a member of the Anaplan working team, and assist in training new users as Anaplan use cases expand across business functions.
  • Center of Excellence Support: Support the creation of an Anaplan Center of Excellence in partnership with the Anaplan working team.
  • Master Model Builder Training: Complete the training and gain the experience required to attain the status of Master Anaplan Model Builder.
  • Forecast Support: Support sales, promotional, and new product introduction initiatives by ensuring demand forecast is appropriate to fulfill launch requirements.
  • Process Evaluation: Evaluate existing processes for continual improvement.
  • Change Management: Change management for future state capabilities.
  • Issue Resolution: Resolve issues in situations that require good technical knowledge and judgment within established procedures.
  • Consultation: Consult more senior team members for issues outside of defined instructions/parameters.
  • Technical Communication: Explain technical information to others.
  • SKU Lifecycle Management: Own the bi-annual process for determining the lifecycle of an SKU (discontinuation, etc.).
  • Sales and Operation Planning Preparation: Create necessary output documents in preparation for the monthly Sales and Operation Planning meetings and be a driver of the process.
  • SCM Improvement: Look for improvement opportunities in the current SCM processes.

5. Demand Planning Analyst Overview

  • Execute Supply and Demand Planning: Execute the Supply and Demand Planning process to drive metric accountability and increase cross-departmental communication.
  • Collaborate for Demand Forecasting: Collaborate with various departments to adjust and calibrate demand forecasts based on external and internal factors such as market trends, demand drivers, seasonality, other plant needs, and volatility.
  • Enhance Business Processes: Make recommendations to enhance business processes and identify opportunities to improve operational efficiencies.
  • Lead Demand Planning: Lead the process of creating and modifying a demand plan.
  • Assess Promotions Impact: Lead the assessment of promotions and events on demand and provide recommendations.
  • Correct Demand-Planning Behaviors: Determine methods to address and correct any demand-planning group behaviors that adversely affect Sales and Operation Planning KPIs.
  • Collaborate on Projects: Collaborate with various cross-functional teams on projects such as new product launches, line extensions, product discontinuations, promotions, and events.
  • Improve Team Skills: Lead and improve team skills and capabilities through peer mentoring, project management, and other indirect leadership opportunities.
  • Develop Planning Infrastructure: Lead the development of demand planning infrastructure and processes to drive the accuracy of SKU-based forecasts.
  • Gather Forecast Inputs: Work cross-functionally with Culinary, Procurement, Marketing, and Operations teams to gather forecast inputs, including marketing plans, product inventory and procurement plans, operational capacities, historical sales data, and seasonal trends.
  • Streamline Workflows: Create streamlined cross-functional workflows to create and distribute accurate and timely demand plans across the business.
  • Create BI Tools: Create BI tools for the Culinary Team that help them analyze customer preferences, order behaviors, menu favorability, and recipe ratings to optimize weekly menus and increase demand.
  • Interpret Data Sets: Interpret large data sets, prepare recommendations, and present them to senior members of the team to advise on strategic decisions.
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