Planning Manager

Job description / Role

- Building the P&L basis on which the yearly Sales Budgets are designed for profitability of each store.
- Weekly Tracking of achievement of budget and LFL growth for assigned department. Driving stores on achievements of daily targets with dynamic changes as per market demand.
- Managing inventory levels of assigned department at the store.
- Critical path analysis for the stocks to be launched for the season and flagging the delays if any to the team. Highlight the pull forward stocks as per demand and covers if required.
- Ensure desired first price sell-thru for assigned department for each season.
- OTB Management & tracking on Planned Inventory flows.
- Assortment Planning based on the OTB to match the requirement of business & have optimum sell thru.
- Ensure the realized margin target for the department are met.
- Ensure adequate mix of merchandise at the stores as per the set guidelines and Planned covers.
- Tracking of Never out of Stock merchandise based on optimum stocks required as per the seasons ahead & optimum stock levels at stores.
- Launching of new products and categories at the stores and ensure timely replenishment.
- Weekly activity of performing inter-store consolidations to maximize sell-thru and avoid any loss opportunity.
- Coordination and liaising with Operation team, buying team, finance team & Marketing team and logistics team as per planned agenda.

Requirements

- Monitoring the Business tracker on Budgets vs. Achievement for sales, inflow tracking for stocks & timely replenishments at store to fill gaps & have no loss opportunity. WSSI (Weekly Stock Sales & Intake Plan monitoring by week)
- AGEING Inventory discussion and Planning to have clean Inventory record and avoid blockage of old inventory and maintain freshness in business. Periodic markdowns and promotions as per requirement by category. Phase wise markdown planned to have higher sales margin and better sell thru.
- Periodic market visits to understand the competitor's strategy for the season and customers behaviour in terms of product selection and pricing.
- Meeting with Brand Principle (conference call) for update on the business and insights on current market conditions. Guidelines from Principle are followed and executed.
- Planning periodic incentive plans for store staff to drive the sales and have motivational factor high at front end.
- Country Store visits for periodic Sales Check.

About the Company

The Apparel Group is a global fashion and lifestyle brand conglomerate residing on the crossroads of a modern economy - Dubai, UAE. The mercurial growth in the last 17 years has been by acquiring a host of world class fashion labels from around the world - Nine West, Tommy Hilfiger, Kenneth Cole, Aldo & Tim Hortons just to name a few.

Today the group caters to thousands of eager shoppers through its over 1530 stores, 75 International brands and employing 12,000 multi cultural staff in over 4 continents. Apparel believes in turning dreams in to reality and we give everyone - our customers, our stakeholders, our employees - an equal opportunity to do so.

Apparel group has carved its strong presence not only in the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, and Saudi Arabia but opened thriving gateways to market in India, South Africa, Poland, Singapore, Jordan, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia. Additionally, clear strategies are in place to enter emerging markets such as Hungary, Pakistan, Egypt and Philippines.