Director, Global Demand Planning

Job Summary: 

As one of the three pillars of the global brand S&OP function within Shiseido Americas, this role is responsible for driving continuous improvement of global demand planning processes for the NARS brand across all of Shiseido group’s regions and key affiliates, with a distinct focus on the US domestic business unit.

In relation to the US business unit, this role is responsible for leading best-in-class demand consensus processes with key internal stakeholders to ensure that the demand plan is aligned to the market’s business ambition and financial targets, while providing visibility to key supply chain KPIs (service, inventory, excess & obsolete reduction and forecast accuracy). The candidate should have expertise in demand planning business process design and a proven track record of successfully deploying and implementing improvements to existing demand processes and ways of working. The candidate should possess an understanding of statistical forecasting methods, with prior experience in historical data cleansing and applying best-fit models to optimize forecast accuracy across varying demand seasonality and volatility.  In addition, the candidate should have direct experience creating market level innovation forecasts at granular SKU/retailer combinations in monthly buckets, aligning and managing the input assumptions during the entire course of launch planning from initial feasibility assessment through to shipment.  This is a core requirement and input into the new product development process, which is critical to deliver innovation to market.

In relation to the global business outside the US, the candidate is expected to have demonstrated ability to effectively lead/influence teams of demand planners in outside geographical regions with a diverse set of working cultures and commercial business processes, with a focus on reinforcing/harmonizing the demand planning processes in alignment to the global FOCUS blueprint. This role is also responsible for facilitating the Regional S&OP meetings with each of our key regions on a per month basis. The candidate is also expected to learn and understand fully the distinct aspects of each region’s businesses in order to effectively support these commercial regions from an overall operations perspective.

Experience working with the other parts of operations and/or supply chain functions is also a major plus, as this role will work closely with the rest of the SAC operations teams to ensure supply risks are appropriately mitigated. Also experience working with internal finance and business development teams are a major plus.

From a technical perspective, the candidate should have demonstrated ability to utilize and deploy the full functionality of SAP IBP’s demand planning module, leveraging its capability to improve collaboration across teams both in the US and across key regional teams, to further unlock value within SAC operations and continue to fuel the brand’s growth.  The candidate should have familiarity with enterprise advanced planning tools (APO, i.e. SAP IBP, Logility, JDA Manugistics, etc.). Prior SAP IBP or APO experience is a major PLUS.

Primary Duties & Responsibilities: 

• Lead monthly demand review/consensus meetings with leadership in US sales, marketing and finance teams to ensure reconciliation of demand to business needs and financial plans
• Collaborate with key US retailers and sales teams to gain alignment with retailer forecasts and specific programs and events
• New innovation forecasting end-to-end for US domestic business
• Attend incoming supply review meetings to understand and communicate risks to demand and orders
• Lead demand planning agenda in monthly executive S&OP and related meetings
• Leverage and coach the demand planning team in creating & updating item level forecasts for brand portfolio comprising 1,000+ finished good SKUs
• Ad-Hoc analysis

Working Relationships/Key Stakeholders:

• US brand sales & marketing teams
• Brand global marketing teams
• Region & Affiliate operations teams
• Global brandholder and US finance teams
• SAC operations teams
  • S&OP supply team / Manufacturing Supply Chain (MSC)
  • NPD, New Product Development
  • Affiliate Customer Service
  • Master Data Management (MDM)

Financial Accountability 

• Forecast Accuracy
• Demand Plan vs Plan/LE alignment
• Total Inventory $ and DOH
• Service Fill-Rate (Missed $)
• Excess & Obsolete inventory in-flow (E&O prevention)

Qualifications & Competencies:

• 4-year bachelor's degree required, MBA preferred
• Major in Engineering, Supply Chain, Finance, or related field a PLUS
• 8-10 years experience in demand planning (prestige, mass beauty or CPG preferred)
• Relevant S&OP, supply chain, data analysis, or other business planning experience a PLUS
• Demonstrated ability to lead meetings to drive actions and accountability across cross-functional teams. 
• Demonstrated ability to communicate complex topics clearly and concisely to peers and senior leadership
• Demonstrated ability to quickly adapt in a highly collaborative environment, a team player, fit with the NARS brand and culture
• Advanced excel skills : demonstrated ability to quickly manipulate large raw data sets to produce reporting that is intuitive and easy to read/understand, advanced formulas and pivot table, and macros knowledge a MAJOR PLUS
• Power Point : demonstrated ability to summarize analysis into slides appropriate for distribution across the organization/management

Trust 8 Competencies

Below is a list of Trust 8 Competencies designed to help employees at Shiseido Americas succeed as the company continues to evolve and innovate.

1. Think Big: Adapt a big-picture perspective. Deliver new values through creativity.
2. Take Risks: Embrace Risk, Practice “Trial and Error and Trial”.
3. Hands On: Consider Front-line realities when making decisions. Take the lead from end to end.