Demand Planner » EltasJobs

The purpose of this role is to support the LBM process within the Africa business. The LBM process is essentially a 24 month rolling demand plan / forecast. The Demand Planner will assist the Demand Manager in implementing and maintaining a robust and regionally consistent demand planning and control process for Lubricants within Africa.

This role is essentially operational, with the main focus being at the SKU level – driving improvement in forecast accuracy, ensuring the data is valid, ensuring that sales data and financial data align, and dealing with short term mismatches between supply and demand.

However, this role is not responsible and accountable for the actual figures output from the process – these figures are jointly owned by the Channel Managers and the Marketing Managers.

Key accountabilities

Monitoring and facilitation of the Demand Control / STEM process within the focus markets, which entails:

Facilitation of the weekly Short Term Exception Management meeting.
Close liaison with Customer Service and Exports team around order control.
Close liaison with Supply Chain around availability.
Monitor and initiate action on forecast consumption levels (ie, the forecast is the foundation for demand control).

Daily control processes of the Demand Planning System:

Review and update item master file from ERP to feed to Supply Chain for input into Demand Solutions.
Review SKU statistical modelling and recommend improvements to Demand Manager.
Review product life cycles, product deletions and launches and propose changes to the Demand Planning system latest demand plan where necessary to the Demand Manager.
Import actuals into LBM Review System (LRS), volume, turnover and COGS, and ensure that the figures reflect the current situation (ie, incorporating product range changes).
Responsible for the LRS balancing with the MI tool (so that sales figures reconcile between the 2 systems).
Ensure SKU forecasting and SKU volumes to product planning groups are aligned, analyse the data and provide info to Demand Manager for adjustments to plan.
Responsible for maintaining and filtering the sales history (taking out once-off type data).

Reporting and trend analysis:

Identify, investigate and, where possible, suggest improvements to process to eliminate under-selling or over-forecasting.
Generate specific MI to enable reduction of forecast bias and improve forecast accuracy.
Run exception management reports to highlight areas of focus for the Demand Manager and Sales & Marketing team.
Reports to the Demand Manager on abnormal demand in the month and actions taken.
Report and present monthly statistical forecast vs LBM volume and gap analysis.

Gives support to the demand management process through:

Effective decision support and recommendations that help resolve demand vs supply imbalances.
Participate meaningfully in the Demand Review meetings on a monthly basis.
Aggregate key information from focus market consensus with Sales & Marketing (including customer level information, or distributors, or specific product changes), and feed into overall demand plan.
Ensure that input from the Product Management Review and Management Business Review are fed into the demand plan via the focus markets’ plans.
Manage the process that allows understanding and documentation of opportunities and vulnerabilities within the focus markets.

Essential Education

A recognised business or technical qualification is preferable (or currently working towards the qualification). Matric minimum.

Essential experience and job requirements

At least 3 years’ experience in a business or supply operational environment.

Other Requirements (e.g. Travel, Location)

N/A

Desirable criteria & qualifications

Skills and competencies:

Enthusiastic and resourceful individual.
Can do attitude and a continuous improvement mindset.
Must be able to work with diverse groups to solve problems and improve processes.
Well-developed skills in problem solving, influencing others, communications, presentation, planning, and forecasting.
Excellent IT literacy as all the foundation work will be in a computerised environment (data warehouses, Access database, Excel skills are critical).
Demonstrable strong analytical skills.
Good interpersonal skills at all levels of the organisation.
Proven track record of having worked successfully within tight deadlines.
Must be a team player with experience across diverse teams, yet able to work autonomously.

Relocation available

Travel required

Is this a part time position?

About BP

Our business is the exploration, production, refining, trading and distribution of energy. This is what we do, and we do it on a truly global scale. With a workforce of nearly 100,000 employees, BP operates with business activities and customers in more than 100 countries across six continents. Every day, we serve millions of customers around the world. We are continually looking for talented, committed and ambitious people to help us shape the face of energy for the future.

BP Southern Africa (BPSA) is part of the global BP group. The major markets of BPSA are in South Africa and Mozambique.

BPSA has 5 main businesses operating in Southern Africa:

The Southern Africa Fuels Value Chain (SA FVC), which is responsible for the refining, marketing, wholesaling and supply of liquid fuels;
Air BP, which supplies quality jet fuels to the aviation community;
BP Marine, a leading supplier of fuels, lubricants and technical services to the marine industry;
LPG, which supplies safe and reliable liquefied petroleum gas;
BP Lubricants, which markets and supplies high quality, high value lubricants, the most famous being the Castrol brand.

BPSA is a dynamic company that aims to attract and develop talent of high caliber. A career with BP is rewarding and challenging, and opportunities for further growth and development are abundant.