Sales & Operations Planning Team Leader

Team Leadership

• Demonstrable experience leading and developing teams; given this will be a new team experience in building and supporting teams as they grow would be highly valued.
• Experience in managing and measuring performance and conducting employee performance reviews
• Highly skilled at fostering open and supportive communication that meets the needs of all team members, and adept at creating inclusive and open work environments.
• Adept at providing guidance and support to individuals and understanding when there is a need to be more hands-on and involved.
• Skilled at providing feedback and ongoing coaching to their teams.

• Sales & Operations Planning

  Lead and facilitate the monthly S&OP process for the business, ensuring appropriate input, outputs and discussions happen on a regular cadence; which includes consensus discussions enable and drive actions and decisions for internal business planning within Demand, Supply and Management.
• Work closely with Sales & Marketing teams to ensure that promotions, and new product forecasts are included in the aggregate of demand.
• Facilitate monthly business review meetings and provide all necessary materials and inputs to enable leadership to make informed decisions regarding resource allocation and plans to mitigate supply imbalances
• Collaborate closely with Supply Planning teams to prepare medium to long term Supply Projections including capacity plans, supplier risks, and other insights to drive and inform the Supply Review meeting and business discussions.
• Leverage planning tools to gather data for analysis and monitor key indicators to ensure alignment with financial planning and identify any gaps or discrepancies in the plans.
• Drive continuous improvement of best-in-class demand planning and S&OP processes, working closely with the Global Centre of Excellence (CoE) for implementation.
• Champion best practices and standardised processes for S&OP across the regions and share learnings and insights to drive recommendations for change.
• Measure, control and improve S&OP planning accuracy using clearly defined and agreed performance metrics (e.g. forecast accuracy, forecasting biases or capacity constraints) to challenge assumptions and enable appropriate amendments to the next planning cycle.
• Provide performance reporting and dashboards to leadership to feed into annual strategic planning cycles.

Education:

• Bachelor’s degree in Supply Chain Management, Logistics, Business Administration, or a related field.

Professional Experience

• A minimum of 8 years of experience of leading the Sales & Operations Planning function, with an excellent understanding of the end-to-end planning cycle (preferably gained from working within a global business environment) from demand through to supply and inventory planning. The role holder must be an experienced user of digital planning tools (such as Kinaxis Maestro or IBP).

Requirements

• Demonstrated ability to lead, motivate and develop a team of planning professionals (ideally within a global environment) including performance management and fostering an open, inclusive and supportive work environment.
• Prior line management experience is essential for this position.
• Experience in performance management, including setting objectives, providing feedback and conducting performance reviews.
• Skilled at setting clear goals and priorities for the team.

Ability to resolve conflicts, foster teamwork and create a positive working environment.

• Proven expertise in Sales & Operations planning – preferably with experience leading the function in a global or international business.
• Highly organized individual who has strong facilitative skills.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with a clear ability to analyse complex data and identify trends
• Excellent Communication and Interpersonal skills being able to communicate effectively with partners and colleagues at all levels, and to work effectively with a diverse set of stakeholders.
• Willingness to challenge the status quo and voice a different perspective or idea.
• Highly proficient in Digital Planning tools (Kinaxis Maestro) and ideally some exposure to Enterprise Resource Planning systems (SAP ECC, S4 Hana).
• Commitment to continuous improvement and fostering a collaborative team culture.
• Curious mindset that is focused on problem-solving and finding solutions using data and analytics to enable the business to grow and evolve.
• Good coaching and mentoring skills to enhance team members’ capabilities and to support the growing team in Pune.
• Experience with recruiting and onboarding teams (desirable).