Demand Planner

At Russell Stover, not only do we love chocolate, but we love our jobs! Every day we go to work exhibiting our values of excellence, innovation, entrepreneurship, responsibility, and collaboration. Working at Russell Stover youll be part of the leading manufacturer of boxed, seasonal, and sugar-free chocolates. For over 100 years, Russell Stover Chocolates, Whitmans, and Pangburns have been crafted with the finest ingredients to bring happiness to generations. Today, we produce over 55 million pounds of chocolate annually, and our legacy brands can be found in 13 company-owned stores and over 9,000 wholesale accounts. Join our team and lets continue making chocolate lovers happy! A day in the lifeAs the Demand Planner, you will be an integral part of the Russell Stover Supply Chain Planning team. You will develop quality forecasts and maintain high forecast accuracy for effective execution of production planning, inventory management, and deployment of product. In this position, you will also focus on leveraging external data sources to improve cross-functional planning processes. As a key point of contact between Sales, Marketing, and Supply Chain, you will play a key role in improving service levels, driving sales, consumer off-take, and supporting organizational strategies through data analytics.As the ideal candidate you must: be able to analyze data effectively and efficiently, be adaptable and open to change in a fast-paced environment, and be able to effectively communicate complexity to all levels of the organization. What you will be doing Maintain the statistical forecast model and sales input to facilitate a consensus forecast. Improve forecast accuracy by accounting for seasonality, new items, new customers, promotional activity, and other market factors. Align demand plans to business objectives through understanding Seasonal, Base, Promotional, New Product, and Cannibalization processes. Support Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) cycle meeting series by pulling data, conducting analysis, building PowerPoints, and facilitating conversation and resolution of planning opportunities with account managers and senior leadership. Facilitate cross-functional collaboration and alignment with Sales, Marketing, Finance, Supply Chain, and IT to drive business results in planning, execution, and risks/opportunities. Prepare and present demand analytics including, but not limited to: missed business/lost sales, forecast accuracy and bias, customer sell-through, monthly and annual pacing, and demand/supply balancing. Develop alerts, reports, and predictive models to support the organization in identifying potential gaps and issues before they arise. Drive Production Planning and Inventory Management strategies to improve customer fill rates and minimize excess inventory. Support demand planning initiatives to drive continuous improvement in global demand planning processes, systems, and integration into the business. Participate in global projects that support Best Practice alignment of Lindt, Ghirardelli, and Russell Stover supply chain systems/processes. Support Vendor Management processes/initiatives as needed. All other duties as assigned by the manager.Do you have what it takes? (Basic Qualifications)Bachelors degree or 2 years of experience in Supply Chain, Statistics, Financial Planning, or Market Analysis Experience using SAP and/or SAP-Integrated Business Planning IBP Advanced Microsoft Excel, Word, and PowerPoint skills Analytical, critical thinking, and multi-tasking skills Strong interpersonal skills, must be able to work cross-functionally at various levels of the organizationDo you stand above the rest? (Preferred Qualifications)At least 5 years of experience in Supply Chain, Planning, or a highly technical role Experience using customer data portals, IRI, or other external market intelligence tools Expertise in a programming language such as SQL, VBA, or Python Experience building dashboards using Business Intelligence tools, such as Tableau, SAP Analytics Cloud, Power BI, etc. Ability to work directly with Russell Stover customersmust possess leadership qualities and the ability to maintain/build customer relationships. Experience working in the CPG industry APICS, IBF, or any type of forecasting certificationAt Russell Stover Chocolates, we dont just accept difference we celebrate it, we support it, and we thrive on it for the benefit of our employees, our products, and our community. Russell Stover Chocolates is proud to be an equal-opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. We provide equal employment opportunities to all people without regard to race, color, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, age, religion, gender, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, marital status, pregnancy, physical or mental disability, protected medical condition, genetic information, military service, veteran status, or any other status or characteristic protected by law. Employment by Russell Stover Chocolates is contingent upon I-9 Employment Eligibility Verification, passing the urinalysis drug screen, education verification, and satisfactory reference and background checks.Make Happy. Work Happy.