Demand Planner job description
A demand planner specializes in carrying out research and analysis to develop forecast models to help assess a supply chain’s demands. They are also responsible for tracking product inventory, maintaining knowledge and understanding of the current trends, generating progress reports and presentations, identifying any forecast changes, and reporting them to management immediately. Typical members of a demand planning team are sales executives, marketers and manufacturers, finance and development executives. With names such as demand manager and demand planning analyst, some businesses have devoted employees. The planner of demand normally leads the team.
ELEMENTS OF THE DEMAND PLANNER
Request scheduling is a dynamic mechanism that normally requires the following components:
- Collection of data on factors known to affect demand from internal and external sources;
- Sales, stock, and other data statistical analysis;
- To model the data to forecast future demand; and
- To obtain information on incidents that could impact demand, such as promotions and production delays, cooperation with vendors, distributors, salespeople, and other stakeholders.
The processes above contribute to the formation of the following:
- Forecasting of demand, a demand estimate based on the data model and analysis, followed by
- The demand plan specifies the quantity, form, and position of inventory necessary to meet the anticipated demand.
Some demand planning techniques often include the following processes outside these basic functions:
- Management of the product lifecycle (PLM) to evaluate factors leading to demand various products; and
- Planning for replenishment to ensure that inventory is in the correct amounts to satisfy the demand in the right places.
TRAITS REQUIRED IN A DEMAND PLANNER
- Company Comprehension
The demand planner also has to have a broad understanding of the business and all the positions in the supply chain. They need to consider how demand can be influenced by marketing activities such as promotions or what latest items are being launched, what products are dying, and how quickly. Even a demand planner must have a thorough understanding of customers, especially those who require special attention and why. They also need to know which demand for goods should, if appropriate, be turned away so consumers have alternative sources of supply.
Instead, they need to realize the consumers or goods are single-source, which allows the organization to do everything in its power to satisfy that demand. Finally, if the estimate is too poor, they need to know enough about production to know which goods are harder to keep up with, maybe because they require special raw materials or long set-ups.
- Know When to Make Changes
An important skill for a demand planner is identifying when a radically new approach to forecasting needs macroeconomic adjustments. Businesses are typically reluctant to lower their estimates in significant downturns. They will best decrease the forecast for next month but leave the outer months at unrealistically high levels. This eventually causes an out-turn in stocks by becoming far too high.
Therefore, it is the duty of the demand planner to consider this scenario and take a different approach to produce their baseline forecast. There are several ways to do this. The demand manager, for example, might make an average percentage difference between the last six months of sales and the same duration of the previous year. This reduction in percentage will then be applied to the usual processes’ forecasts, and then the new baseline would be established.
- Acknowledging Facts
Sometimes, even though all use the best estimate, the parts’ amount is too high for the whole. If any of the 30 sales representatives at the product level estimate only a little too optimistically, the outcome will become too high at the product level. Therefore, the demand manager should acknowledge this and go to the relevant individuals for a reality check.
JOB DESCRIPTION OF A DEMAND PLANNER
While their work dictates a demand planner’s particular roles and responsibilities, there are some common tasks. The key tasks associated with the work, based on our analysis of job listings, are:
- Creating Forecasts
To analyze and verify collected data, demand planners use statistical modeling tools. When reporting information to sales and marketing teams or company officers, these figures may be used.
- Increase Forecasts
In order to better satisfy consumer expectations, demand managers must always have the attitude that they can build on their initial prediction.
- Coordinate with Marketing and Distribution Personnel
In order to generate more detailed predictions, demand planners consult with account managers to review expected product promotions.
- Report Inside the Organization to Key Officials
Demand managers inform a company’s main players about suitable product forecasts and how to monitor and evaluate forecasts for the best outcomes.
- Developing and Maintaining Different Relationships
Demand planners need to cultivate and establish good relationships with customers, suppliers, brokers, buying managers, and internal sales workers effectively.
REQUIREMENTS OF BEING A DEMAND PLANNER
- Bachelor’s degree in management, supply chain, or any other important fields.
- The capability of multitasking.
- Should have 3 years of work experience in the role of demand planning/ forecasting.
- Solid knowledge of methods and processes for inventory management.
- Powerful statistical and mathematical skills.
SIGNIFICANCE OF DEMAND PLANNERS
It is important to keep up with the demand for a product, and failure to do so will result in lost sales for the product or, worse yet, lost customers. One of the key priorities of demand managers is to have exactly the right amount of inventory without incurring shortages or spending money on manufacturing and maintaining excess inventory to fulfill consumer demand. A demand planner may also support the bullwhip effect, a situation in which minor variations in retail demand intensify demand from previous suppliers and producers. More detailed demand forecasts and improved coordination between supply chain participants can also help mitigate the bullwhip’s impact.
Demand Planner Salary
According to payscale, demand planners in the United States on average make $67,664. Demand Planner salary range typically is between $54,660 and $72820
FUTURE OF DEMAND PLANNER
The rising accessibility, some of it transferred by IoT sensors and other artificial intelligence approaches, of more synchronous data, helps boost forecasts’ accuracy. In the meantime, cloud-based communication platforms and mobile devices improve demand planners’ ability to exchange information and respond more quickly to supply and demand changes. So generally, more supply chain members, from the customer to the producer to the supplier of raw materials, are increasingly connected to the drive toward more digital alteration to have full control over the flow of products.
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