Demand Planning Manager

Key Responsibilities

Policy Development and Governance

Author and maintain the Demand Planning Policy, defining the principles, authorities, escalation paths, and compliance requirements for all forecasting activities

Establish governance cadences (monthly policy reviews, quarterly audits) to ensure adherence to approved planning standards

Define roles, responsibilities, and accountabilities (RACI) for all participants in the demand planning process

Develop and enforce data governance standards for forecast inputs, ensuring traceability, version control, and audit readiness

Recommend and implement policy amendments in response to organizational changes, market shifts, or audit findings

Procedures and Standard Operating Practices

Design, document, and maintain Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for statistical forecasting, consensus building, assumption logging, and exception management

Define the end-to-end demand planning workflow, including trigger points, decision gates, approval hierarchies, and handoff protocols between functions

Establish procedures for new product introduction (NPI) forecasting, product phase out, and promotional demand overlays

Define escalation and exception handling procedures for forecast overrides, ensuring all adjustments are justified, documented, and approved per policy

Maintain a controlled document library for all demand planning procedures, ensuring version control and periodic review cycles (minimum semi-annual)

Metrics, Measurement, and Continuous Improvement

Conduct root cause analysis on forecast variances and recommend corrective actions with documented remediation plans

Propose new practices such as demand sensing, machine learning augmented forecasting, and external signal integration (e.g., leading economic indicators, channel sell through data)

Lead periodic process maturity assessments and recommend capability uplift initiatives

Benchmark internal practices against industry standards and recommend adoption of emerging methodologies

SIOP/S&OP Process Ownership

Own and govern the demand review step of the Sales, Inventory & Operations Planning (SIOP) process, including the meeting cadence, agenda structure, and output requirements

Define and enforce the procedures for preparing, reviewing, and approving the consensus demand plan prior to executive presentation

Establish the standard format and content requirements for SIOP demand submissions, including scenario analyses, risk registers, and assumption logs

Reconcile top-down financial targets with bottom up statistical and sales driven forecasts per documented reconciliation procedures

Recommend process enhancements to the SIOP cycle based on post meeting retrospectives and stakeholder feedback

Cross-Functional Collaboration and Procedural Alignment

Partner with Sales and Product Management to establish procedures for incorporating pipeline intelligence, NPI forecasts, and customer insights into the demand plan

Collaborate with Supply Planning and Procurement to define the handoff procedures and service level agreements (SLAs) for demand signal transmission

Work with Finance to align demand forecasting procedures with revenue planning cycles, ensuring consistent assumptions and reconciliation checkpoints

Engage with regional and country teams to validate local market assumptions per standardised regional input templates

Systems, Tools, and Automation

Define system usage policies and user access protocols for demand planning tools and ERP modules

Recommend and implement automation opportunities to reduce manual effort, improve repeatability, and enforce procedural compliance

Develop dashboards and reporting aligned to the approved KPI framework, providing visibility into demand performance, process adherence, and policy compliance

Champion data quality initiatives by establishing validation rules, exception reports, and remediation workflows for forecast input data

Requirements:

Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, Finance, Business or related field

8-10 years of related experience in a material planning/ sales inventory control/ logistics/ customer service within a manufacturing and operations environment.

Has Business analytics, data science knowledge

Strong understanding of Continuous Improvement and Lean Techniques and applications

Demonstrates proficiency in all MS office applications

Excellent verbal and written communications skills

Skilled in data visualization tools (PowerBI, Smartsheet, Microsoft List/Planner)

Demonstrated leadership and organization skills with a team orientation.

APICS / CPIM Certificate would be an asset.