Xylem Careers

Description

This role is a critical part of the organization's SIOP team and is responsible for managing long and short-term forecasts for all assigned product lines and families. This role interacts closely with Sales and Product Management to build a cross-functional demand plan that will be used as the basis for production planning and material purchasing throughout the supply chain.

The Demand Manager uses a variety of data sources including sales promotional data, new product plans, and statistical modeling to create a demand signal to drive supply chain and Integrated Business Planning.  The monthly goal is to deliver an accurate and cross-functionally aligned 24 month rolling demand plan. A key responsibility of the Demand Manager is to develop, document, update and challenge the assumptions supporting the demand plan.

PRIMARY DUTIES

• Lead the Demand Planning process for the assigned Market.
• Develop demand forecasts (operational forecasts) at multiple levels of aggregation and time horizons as part of a demand planning function.  
• Continuously analyze, report, and evaluate forecast error rates and develop root-cause action plans to reduce forecast errors and continuously improve the process.
• Review historical sales trends, research demand drivers, prepare forecast data, develop statistical forecast models, and evaluate forecast results.
• Coordinate cross-functional research activities to reconcile significant variances and refine the forecast model to reflect updated sales and product management assumptions.
• Interact with sales, product management, and finance to understand demand forecast drivers such as end of month / year activities or other promotional or event-based activities.
• Use and maintain the Demand software as the primary forecasting system tool.
• Provide input to the Supply Planning organization in developing inventory strategies on existing items, new products, and product phase-outs.
• Closely coordinate and communicate demand signals with supply planning.
• Partner with Product Management by leading the demand review meetings to develop and communicate a consensus forecast.
• Generate and distribute reports to communicate forecast changes throughout the organization and how those changes might impact inventory or capacity.
• Other duties as required.

JOB FUNCTIONS

• Create statistical forecasts: Gather, analyze, and validate data; Execute statistical modeling software; Review resulting statistical forecast model; Apply error analysis techniques to improve forecasting; Summarize/aggregate statistical forecasts.
• Review sales plans, financial budgets and estimates and other demand drivers: Present, solicit, and assess feedback on the various forecasts from Product Management, Sales, and Finance
• Achieve consensus for operational demand forecasts by facilitating a collaborative planning process with marketing sales, and finance personnel: Prepare relevant material to facilitate research and discussion.
• Provide input to volume planning (latest estimates / annual process): Facilitate monthly demand review meetings.
• Maintain demand planning system and software: Enter and modify data to ensure a good statistical forecast.  Evaluate and maintain outlier demand. Monitor trends in forecast error; Identify relevant market-related data and competitive intelligence.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor’s degree
• 7 years of experience in Demand Planning, Product Management or Supply Chain, with significant experience in planning, statistics, or data analytics.

PREFERRED QUALIFCATIONS

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Supply Chain, Marketing, or a related field
• Advanced technical or business degree, MBA preferred
• Demonstrated Continuous Improvement (CI) experience - Lean Six Sigma experience and/or Green Belt.
• Strong leadership, communication, analytical, and problem-solving skills to drive decisions and build consensus among stakeholders.
• High level proficiency in Microsoft Office, specifically Microsoft Excel and Access to design and execute complex queries and reporting
• Strong mathematical and statistical knowledge; Experience with Business Intelligence applications (examples: Alteryx, Tableau, Power BI).
• Proficiency in Demand Planning Systems – Preferably Demand Works (Smoothie)
• Experience working with a CRM tool preferred: experience with salesforce.com a plus
• Strong written and verbal communication skills

Application

If you have any questions regarding this position, please contact Recruiter Leila Sayyad, [email protected]