Associate Manager, Demand Planner

Description

The Role:

• The Associate Manager, Demand Planning - East Africa is responsible for leading the end-to-end demand planning process across the East Africa cluster, ensuring the development of a robust and accurate demand forecast that supports business growth, customer service objectives, inventory optimization, and financial targets. The role serves as a critical link between Commercial, Supply Chain, Finance, and Regional Planning teams, driving forecast accuracy, facilitating Integrated Business Planning (IBP) processes, and enabling data-driven decision-making across the region.

• The incumbent will provide visibility of demand trends, challenge assumptions through data and insights, identify risks and opportunities, and ensure alignment between commercial plans and supply capabilities. This role plays a key part in strengthening planning maturity and forecasting excellence across East Africa.

Main Responsibilities / Tasks:

• Own and manage the end-to-end demand planning and forecasting process for the East Africa cluster.

• Develop, maintain, and continuously improve a rolling 24-month demand forecast at market, customer, and product level.

• Drive forecast accuracy improvement initiatives and proactively manage forecast bias through robust analytics and root cause analysis.

• Lead the monthly Demand Review process and support Integrated Business Planning (IBP) and Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) activities.

• Collaborate closely with Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, Finance, and Supply Planning teams to ensure forecast alignment and business consensus.

• Analyze historical sales trends, market intelligence, promotional plans, customer developments, and new product launches to generate accurate demand assumptions.

• Identify and communicate demand risks and opportunities, recommending mitigation and contingency actions where required.

• Partner with Supply Planning to translate demand signals into supply requirements while highlighting inventory, capacity, availability, and service risks.

• Support inventory optimization efforts by balancing customer service requirements with working capital objectives.

• Monitor and report forecast performance metrics, providing actionable recommendations to improve planning effectiveness.

• Serve as the key user and process owner for demand planning systems, ensuring data accuracy and integrity across planning tools.

• Drive continuous improvement initiatives, process standardization, and digital transformation projects within the planning function.

• Facilitate cross-functional collaboration and influence stakeholders to support fact-based decision making.

• Prepare and present demand planning insights and performance updates to local, regional, and leadership stakeholders.

• Key Performance Indicators

• Forecast Accuracy (%)

• Forecast Bias (%)

• Demand Plan Adherence

• Customer Service Levels

• Inventory Health and Days of Inventory

• Slow-Moving and Obsolete Inventory Reduction

• Timely Completion of Demand Review and IBP Cycles

• Quality and Accuracy of Demand Planning Reports

• Stakeholder Satisfaction and Cross-Functional Alignment

• Continuous Improvement and Process Optimization Deliverables

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in supply chain management, Engineering, Business Management, Mathematics, Statistics, Economics, or a related field.
• Minimum of 3 years of experience in Demand Planning, Supply Chain Planning, Forecasting, or a related discipline.
• FMCG and/or multinational company experience is strongly preferred.
• Demonstrated experience managing demand forecasting and S&OP/IBP processes.
• Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Excel and Power BI.
• Experience with demand planning systems such as Blue Yonder or similar planning platforms is an advantage.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving capabilities with the ability to translate data into meaningful business insights.
• Excellent stakeholder management and influencing skills with the confidence to challenge assumptions using data.
• Ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced and dynamic business environment.
• Strong communication and presentation skills.
• Self-driven, proactive, and results-oriented mindset with high attention to detail.