At Pet Valu, we understand that your pet is part of the family because we’re devoted pet lovers too. We have been providing pets with everything they need to live healthy, happy, and active lives for more than 40 years.

Our employees are the key to our success! As a growing organization, our employees apply their creativity and innovative ideas as they take ownership of their projects and growth. We pride ourselves on providing an open environment by managing with approachability and providing support to allow for career development.

Our Supply Chain team is growing and evolving to ensure that we continue to provide the best experience possible to support our Pet Valu community. We are excited to continue the journey with this role, to help us make a difference each day, supporting pets and their owners.

Job Summary:

Reporting to our Demand Planning Manager, the primary focus of the Demand Planner role is to support network planning for supply chain. This includes forecasting and inbound/outbound volumes for Distribution Centres and, at times, store locations. They will also create and maintain forecast models for assigned business areas which are used to optimize inventory levels at stores and warehouses, incorporating business intelligence gathered from category management and marketing along with industry insights.

The successful candidate should be looked upon as an emerging subject matter expert to align with best Supply Chain practices and be in sync with our Supply Chain network, systems, strategy, team culture, and the Pet Valu community. The Demand Planner role is ideal for someone passionate about optimizing networks and familiar with concepts and practical application of Supply Chain and statistical forecasting.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Utilize Blue Yonder Demand modules and other data inputs to build demand forecasts that tie to the merchandise financial plans and assortment plans.

• Collaborate with finance and DC operations to support network planning. Utilize Pet Valu’s systems and tools to provide insight on financials as well as inbound and outbound volumes to support DC operations.

• Review historical sales trends, research demand drivers, prepare forecast data, develop statistical forecast models, and evaluate forecast results.

• Review and analyze lost sales for impacts on forecast trends and exception reporting review.

• Collaborate and research cross-functionally to reconcile significant variances and refine the forecast model to reflect updated sales and marketing assumptions.

• Utilize forecast and reporting tools to analyze forecast accuracy to understand root causes for error and drive continuous improvement within the organization.

• Set and manage tuning parameters for forecast models and exceptions-based reporting.

• Review the building of promotions, ensure lifts and impacts on the forecasts meet expectations.

• Ensure new stores/items are set up and forecasted based on models and/or similar items.

• Effectively document and communicate key assumptions related to all published demand plans and scenarios.

• Validate statistical forecasts: gather/analyze and validate data, execute statistical modeling, review resulting statistical forecast models, applying error analysis techniques to improve forecasting, summarize statistical forecast accuracy.

• Utilize a collaborative and consensus approach by interacting with Marketing, Category Management, Store Operations, and internal planning team to understand demand forecast drivers.

• Participate in monthly demand review meetings to evaluate forecasting effectiveness, determine root causes of any significant issues, and coordinate the action plans to improve forecast accuracy.

• Key contributor to the merchandise financial planning inputs and outputs and its impact to the Supply Chain process.

• Generate weekly reports on key metrics.

Competencies:

Technical

• Advanced Microsoft 365 knowledge in MS Word, Excel and Power Point.

• Familiarity with Blue Yonder (JDA) and data mining applications (Tableau, Power BI, Excel, IBM Cognos) and languages (SQL, R, Python, VBA, DAX) and other basic coding languages.

Analytical

• The candidate must understand and be passionate about the concepts and practical application of statistical forecasting. Discussions on the utilization of seasonal curves, promotional uplifts and smoothing of transactional data are keys to an understanding of the forecasting processes.

• Clear understanding of end-to-end supply chain and supporting business processes.

• Superior analytical skills that enable teams to interpret and transform customer needs, converting them into a better customer experience.

• Experience establishing key performance indicator metrics to benchmark and track performance.

• Ability to analyze large data sets to discover patterns, meaningful relationships, irregularities, and trends.

Teamwork

• An effective team player who adds complementary skills and contributes valuable ideas and feedback.

• Accountable for fulfilling any commitments made to others on the immediate or cross functional team.

• Ensure the right business leads are informed and involved when required.

• Build partnerships and work collaboratively with teams to achieve shared objectives.

• Willing to “roll up their sleeves” when necessary to support tasks.

Execution with excellence

• Well organized and strong time management skills.

• Ability to manage multiple priorities and multi-task.

• Learn innovative methods, tools, and technology and apply them to business requests and tasks.

• Self-directed and motivated to independently accomplish results.

Communication

• Advanced written/verbal communication and presentation skills.

• Establish and maintain effective, dynamic relationships with management and cross-functional partners across the organization.

Experience, Education, Certifications

• Degree or diploma in Supply Chain, Finance, Economics, Analytics, Business, Math, Statistics, or related field.

• Post-secondary education in business, supply chain or a related field. Relevant work experience will be considered.

• Minimum 3-5 years of progressive experience in supply chain focusing on Demand Planning with a focus leveraging Forecasting tools (Blue Yonder Demand preferred, but not required).

• Experience in the retail industry is required, Pet Food, Supplies and Accessories experience is considered an asset.

• Real world forecasting experience in a multi-national network supply chain business that includes multiple points of distribution, and retail locations is considered an asset.

• Experience collaborating across an organization with Merchandising, Supply Chain, Marketing, Store Operations, Finance, and IT is considered an asset.

• Excellent analytical and communication skills (written and verbal).

Working Conditions

• Flexible hybrid work schedule allowing for work from home, office, and distribution center.

• Able to work in both warehouse and office environments.

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