Demand Planner

Overview:
**Our core purpose is “We are curators of unique brands, bringing elevated food and beverage experiences to Canadians.”**

Tree of Life Canada ULC is an Employer who strives to provide an inclusive work environment that involves everyone and embraces the diverse talent of its people. We are committed to meeting the needs of persons with disabilities. If selected for an interview, we will be happy to work with you to ensure your interview is accessible and accommodation is provided. When your interview is being scheduled, please advise the Recruiter of how we might be able to support your participation.

Primary Responsibilities:
Reporting to the Director of Supply Chain, the Demand Planner will play a central role in producing an accurate forecast of the expected demand across all customers and products sold by the company, from coast-to-coast across Canada. With deep system and analytical expertise, you will be accountable for leveraging the company’s data, transactional and master, and using forecast systems and methods to produce a Demand Plan that meets the accuracy targets required to successfully run the business. With deep interpersonal skills, you will be responsible for interacting with various teams in the organization to explain, complement, and get consensus on Demand Plans assumptions and results. As a Demand Planner, you will work closely with the Supply Planning team, who will consume your Demand Plans to purchase inventory and meet customer needs. You will also work closely with the Sales and Marketing teams to collectively plan for new product introductions, promotions, and other similar events. Together with an overall business’ systems and processes modernization project, the roles and responsibilities of Demand Planning function will modernize from offline tools and processes to integrated business solutions. As with all positions of Tree of Life Canada, we expect that all actions will be consistent with Tree of Life Canada’s Mission, Vision, and Values.

Essential Functions:

- Support and participate in food safety programs including SQF (Safe Quality Food).
- Creating and maintaining an accurate Baseline Demand forecast by leveraging historical sales, after cleaning it from exceptions, promotions, and abnormalities, and projecting it into the future using forecasting methods.
- Choosing the best Baseline Demand forecasting method based on product characteristics. Measure Baseline forecasting accuracy, identifying/resolving the root-causes of significant forecasting errors.
- Achieving consensus on the Baseline Demand volume by working in collaboration with Sales and other cross-functional teams, receiving feedback and making Baseline adjustments as necessary.
- Monitoring and validating Promotional Lift forecasts which are computed by the Sales Team and are layered on top of the Baseline Demand. Work in collaboration with Sales and Marketing, and leverage the performance of previous promotional activities, to validate Promotional Lifts.
- Supporting the Sales team in computing Promotional Lifts forecasts by creating and maintaining analysis and/or tools that leverage historical Point-of-Sales (POS) data provided by some large customer/retailers.
- Measuring the forecast accuracy of the Promotional Lift, identifying the root-causes of significant errors, and working with the Sales Team to address it.
- Producing the Baseline Demand for New Product Introductions (NPIs) and new stores, as well as closely monitoring the early performance of these events to adjust the Baseline as needed. Similarly, adjusting the Baseline for upcoming De-Listing events to avoid overstock situations.
- Monitoring and validating NPIs Pipeline Push quantities, which are computed by the Sales team and represents the number of cases required to fill customers shelves and warehouses.
- Producing a total Demand Plan, including Baseline Demand and Incremental, (e.g., Promotional Lift, Pipeline Push), being able to explain the reasons behind upcoming peaks and valleys in the Demand Plan.
- Complement and adjust the total Demand Plan based on data pertaining to Customer Order Forecast provided by some large customer/retailers.
- Comparing and identifying gaps between the Demand Plan, Budget, and Last-Year volumes. Socializing these gaps with the relevant team members in Sales and Marketing.
- Developing and maintaining Demand Planning procedure documentation including system settings, queries, reports, meetings cadence, and other processes.
- Other duties and special projects as requested

Minimum Requirements, Qualifications, Additional Skills, Aptitude:

- Post-secondary education in Engineering, Supply Chain, or related field
- Minimum 5 years of experience in Demand Planning
- Experience with SAP/APO, SAP/IBP, SAP/F&R, JDA, or any other advanced ERP system is required
- Outstanding analytical skills, including statistical and forecasting
- High-level proficiency in MS Office, especially Excel