Purpose:

The Merchandise Planning Lead is a trusted advisor to the SEA Trading Lead & Market Country Manager. This role will develop & execute the required in-season trading capabilities & expertise (Promotion / Markdowns / EOSS) while supporting the end-to-end strategic execution & allocation to the store / door level in partnership with Demand Planning, Inventory Management, Commercial Team and Finance Team.

The Merchandise Planning Lead will drive the Market Trading team to take the best decision on in-season management, reforecasting & allocation, leveraging sell-in and sell-out data, qualitative information while using strong analytical skills & financial acumen to support the market to deliver the Financial KPIs. The Trading Lead must be able to identify key business issues, taking the initiative to investigate and provide analysis on opportunities and risks in the business

This role will collaborate closely with Commercial, Finance & Inventory Management team to drive optimal in-season decisions for the market.

Responsibilities:

• Manage assortment portfolio & life cycle within the season incorporating financial expectations.
• Collaborate with SEA Demand Planning, Market Finance and Commercial teams to reconcile bottom-up revenue plans and top-down sales targets for Market level.
• Manage & coordinate market store segmentation, buy budget and OTB management with key stakeholders in the local market.
• Support Market sales / GP$ / sell-out performance and align actions with Commercial & Finance Leads to manage in-season profitability, and maximize full price sell thru / margin whilst maintaining health of inventory profile.
• Develop accurate store inventory flow forecasts that support business strategies.
• Execute allocation strategies to optimize inventory, including new store assortments and replenishments for each Outlet based on BE (Brand Experience) and VM (Visual Merchandising) recommendations.
• Use inputs from sizing team, historical performance & qualitative feedback from retail ops to update allocation parameters and derive size curve by product/store in order to optimize store/door sell through.
• Participate in affiliate weekly operation meeting to proactively highlight issues to get resolution.
• Work with SEA inventory management to ensure consistent in-season allocation & replenishment to drive appropriate coverage within the market DC while managing through inventory spikes beyond the capacity of our stores.
• Bridge the communications between SEA and local functional teams to ensure ways of working and brand strategy are consistently executed in local market.
• Actively support local S&OP process, providing necessary insights and recommending courses of action.
• Develop market parameters (target Weeks of Cover & model stock) for new items and/or new stores with established monitoring mechanism (Scorecard).
• Collaborate with Order Management / Distribution / Logistics to plan out operation activities considering of holidays / capacity / manpower constraints.
• Hind-sighting store performance & end of season performance.

Requirements:

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience.
• 5-7 years of work experience in Retail business.
• Strong analytical skills to interpret meaningful themes from quantitative data.
• Ability to articulate key financial measures, and how they are used in key systems/tools.
• Comfort with systems and high proficiency with Microsoft Office (Excel & Power point).
• Prior experience with planning solutions (SAS, BI, SAP, etc.) a plus.
• Ability to use rigor and logic to solve problems with effective solutions.
• Ability to problem solve – both independently, and through strong business partnerships.
• Ability to analyze and assess impact of business decisions, both direct and indirect.
• Proactively identify business issues and develop creative solutions.
• Consistently prioritize and manage workload and processes to meet objectives.
• Ability to build constructive and effective relationships with a broad, diverse group of business partners.
• Ability to influence stakeholders through the delivery of articulate messages, backed by robust analysis.
• Strong interpersonal skills and proven ability to work with diverse teams.
• Ability to adjust communication style to provide information and direction in an effective manner.