VP - Planning

Responsibilities:

• Maximize Sales and profitability for the department/category
• Support in determining high-level financial goals including pre-season financial plans, in-season projections, open-to-buy management and new store budgets
• Prepare and maintain department/category merchandise MIS analytics based on actual sales, sales forecasts, company order parameters, inventory checks, forth coming events, replenishment needs etc
• Assist in the creation of merchandise plans for the category based on insights gained from merchandise analytics, customer preference, historical trends and future outlook projected by the buyer
• Assist in discussing, deciding and freezing the department/category merchandise strategic plans around the following factors
• Develop Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to bring about standardization, system and process orientation in Production and Operations. Organize Training and Development Programme to spread awareness about these in consultation with CHRO and Training Lead.

Financials

• Sales, Stock, OTB, Margins, Forward Cover etc

Store

• Subgroup level Sales, Order Quantity, Allocation, Replenishment etc

Assortment

• Style, Price, Brand, Supplier etc
• Communicate the merchandise strategic plan to buying team for necessary execution
• Ensure effective in season management across territories (stock balancing, markdown management, stock analysis, stock vs sales performance)
• Help review the merchandise plans on a periodic basis to ensure profit is maximized and maintained to reach target levels
• Ensure that the standards of Merchandise procedures and Methodologies are maintained and kept Uniform
• Ensure optimum category inventory levels are maintained at Concept/Territory keeping in mind store requirements as well as working capital constraints

Category Promotions

• Provide inputs on the expected margins, possible price points and other parameters for promotions within the product category
• Help analyze the effectiveness of the promotions in achieving the targeted levels of sales and margins
• Help analyze the existing stock levels and liaise with the Buying/VM/Marketing team for timely roll out of promotional campaigns to maintain the territory / warehouse inventory holding norms as well to achieve targeted sales
• Ensure performance is monitored against plan for the assigned category/department, regularly supported by exception reporting
• Ensure effective in season management of the assigned category/department through regular analysis and action planning across concept and territory, based on the performance around the following anchors.

Leadership Skills

• Excellent interpersonal, analytical negotiation skills with proven track record of spearheading numerous cost innovation projects during the career span
• Strong people development and management skills excellent orator and ability to manage risk at work
• Proven leadership ability of growing team from scratch

Desired Education / Experience Essentials

• Postgraduate/MBA
• 10+ Years of experience
• Experience in Retail will be preferred