Merchandise Planner

Job description / Role

Inspire | Exhilarate | Delight

For over six decades, Chalhoub Group has been a partner and creator of luxury experiences in the Middle East. The group, in its endeavour to excel as a hybrid retailer, has reinforced its distribution and marketing services with a portfolio of eight owned brands and over 300 international brands in the luxury, beauty, fashion, and art de vivre categories. More recently, the group expanded its expertise into new categories of luxury watches, jewellery, and eyewear.

Every step at Chalhoub Group is taken with the customer at heart. Be it constantly reinventing itself or focusing on innovation to provide luxury experiences at over 750 experiential retail stores, online and through mobile apps, each touch point leads to delighting the customer.

Today, Chalhoub Group stands for 14,000 skilled and talented professionals across seven countries, whose cohesive efforts have resulted in the group being ranked third in the Middle East and first in Saudi Arabia as a great place to work.

To keep the innovation journey going, the group has set up "The Greenhouse", which is not just an innovation hub, but also an incubator space and accelerator for start-ups and small businesses in the region and internationally. This is just one of the several initiatives taken by the group to reinvent itself, catalysed by forward thinking and future-proofing. The group has also been embedding sustainability at the core of its business strategy with a clear commitment towards people, partners, and the planet, and by being a member of the United Nations Global Compact Community and signatory of the Women's Empowerment Principles.

What you'll be doing

• Run the procurement plan and the execution of the purchase orders based on sales forecasts aligned with the business. Validate supply demand and stock parameters to optimize the stock while maximizing the service level.
• Develop and apply forecasting and replenishment techniques regarding demand planning and stock parameters, and communicate results to relevant team members.
• Review sales inputs and ensure an appropriate sales forecast is developed and consistently renewed to generate greater forecast accuracy.
• Investigate and evaluate demand scenarios and the impact of relevant constraints to ensure an appropriate basis is selected for the demand plan.
• Alert on supply constraints which are business critical and propose remedial action.
• Run the S&OP process within the business to align on a total sales forecast, including baseline, novelties, animations, and promotions.
• Manage the specification and agreement of KPIs and SLAs with key suppliers.
• Manage your data with care to ensure the planning system is fed with the right information.
• Partner with Group Logistics to manage the transportation including optimizing fleets, maintaining a distribution network, and challenging selected methods of transportation.
• Define strategies and processes to accommodate inventory returns, transfers, and stock depletion, and ensure inventory planning adjustments are made accordingly.
• Participate in cross-vertical projects to reinforce the demand and supply planning processes of the group.
• Define the sales plan and OTB by partnering with buying, finance, retail, and e-commerce business to develop the merchandise strategy, using data-driven input from sales trends, market conditions, and supplier demands to drive profitable decision making.
• Develop and provide buying with category assortment recommendations plans and sizing analysis by channel, region, store, and sell-through reports at SKU level by stores which are aligned with the merchandise strategy and proactively suggest improvements to optimize revenue and profitability through what-if scenarios.
• Monitor inventory aging and recommend actions on markdowns and liquidation to achieve inventory targets considering category and brand identity.
• Drive pricing strategy and plan seasonal markdowns by item to maximize sales and gross margin in collaboration with buying and retail.
• Assess and highlight risks and opportunities on sales, gross margin, and inventory, based on supply or demand gaps, recommending possible solutions.
• Re-plan business in-season based on latest performance and present it to management with recommendations.
• Monitor inventory mix in each location and recommend seasonal stock transfers, if needed, in order to boost sales.

Typical KPIs for this function:

• Stock holding
• Quality of the stock mix
• Aging of the stock
• Net working capital
• Range efficiency
• Forecast accuracy
• Full price sell-through

What you'll need to succeed

• Knowledge in supply planning techniques and systems, and capable of delivering training initiatives.
• Comfortable with data management and analytics, and build learnings and action plans from it.
• Able to work with cross-functional or organizational teams.
• Able to participate in top-to-top risk mitigation discussions with key supply partners.
• Minimum 3 years' experience in procurement or supply planning. Experience in transportation management systems is a plus.

What we can offer you

With us, you will turn your aspirations into reality. We will help shape your journey through enriching experiences, learning and development opportunities, and exposure to different assignments within your role or through internal mobility. Our group offers diverse career paths for those who are extraordinary, every day.

We recognise the value that you bring, and we strive to provide a competitive benefits package which includes health care, child education contribution, remote and flexible working policies as well as exclusive employee discounts.

We invite all applicants to apply.

It takes diversity of thought, culture, background, differing abilities, and perspectives to truly inspire, exhilarate, and delight our customers. At Chalhoub Group, we are committed to inclusion and diversity.

We welcome all applicants to apply and be part of our exciting future. We ensure equal opportunity for all our applicants without regard to gender, age, race, religion, national origin, or disability status.

Department: Supply Chain & Logistics

Role: Merchandise Analyst

About the Company

The Chalhoub Group is the leading partner for luxury across the Middle East since 1955. As an expert in retail, distribution and marketing services based in Dubai, the group has become a major player in the fashion, beauty and gift sectors regionally.

By blending its Middle East expertise and intimate knowledge of luxury, Chalhoub Group is building brands in the region, by offering service excellence to all its partners and a unique experience to its customers through its passionate teams.

With a growing workforce of more than 9,000 people, implemented in 14 countries, as well as the operating of over 470 retail outlets, the group's success is attributed to its most valued asset of highly skilled and dedicated teams. Professionalism and passion are what fuel the Chalhoub Group's competitive edge in today's market.

By being committed to implementing sustainable practices into their business, the Chalhoub Group has been awarded in 2013 the CSR Label from the Dubai Chamber of Commerce.