Summary

The Manager, Planning & Allocating at Diesel will plan the strategies for assigned channels and categories that optimize sales, inventory, and profitability. Responsible for inputting and maintaining plans in the relevant systems and applications. Develops and implements the detailed merchandise pre-season sales and inventory plans that support strategic brand, merchandising and financial goals for respective lines. Implements proposed stock strategy and highlights opportunities at the store collection level identifying the optimal level of stock required to deliver net sales. Responsible for distribution and management of inventory from initial allocation, replenishment, and end of season reconciliation. Partner with Merchandising and Store teams to implement allocation strategy that maximizes productivity by store cluster.

Responsibilities

• Develop and present seasonal merchandise plans with all financial metrics by line, by collection, including retail and unit sales, and intake.
• Participate in developing process that build efficiencies and streamline work.
• Participate for respective lines in line review meeting with buying team.
• Implement in-season sales forecasts by collection/category as needed, providing summary of variances to plan.
• Implement updated forecasts into respective HQ planning systems in a timely basis to ensure global coordination as well as forecast working capital and margin opportunities.
• Analyze and communicate product category needs in total and on a regional level performance to Plan and LY and recommend actions or insights.
• Highlight inventory levels discrepancies regarding OTB guidelines.
• Re-forecast business in-season and participate in monthly OTB meetings – sales forecast, inventory, current and future season diagnosis, identify opportunity as well as risk.
• Prepare hind-sights by classification and style against plan and last year.
• Participate in Quarterly hind-sights and participate meetings and line reviews.
• Provide updated weekly forecasts to merchandising team detailing category opportunities and risks, recommending actions to management to gain consensus on business.
• Develop current and historical business recaps at the gender/category/class level, which identify opportunities and risks and influence buys and assortment strategies.
• Establish, distribute, and track seasonal performance for assigned categories across monobrand, ecommerce and outlet channels.
• Generate weekly trend reports by store and by product, identifying opportunities to maximize sales.
• Support the Operations and Visual Team in their pre-visit store analysis.
• Contribute to the development of Brand initiatives, and ensure that all planning activities support annual goals.

Requirements

• 5+ years experience of full lifecycle merchandise analysis (forecast and in-season, through allocations) for a $20M+ net sales retail business – desirable but not required.
• Experience in financial analysis and complex data analysis.
• Demonstrated interpersonal, written and verbal communication skills.
• Strong presentation skills and ability to speak effectively in front of large group.
• Demonstrated ability to present complex financial material in a concise, executive-level, and compelling manner.
• Demonstrated experience building constructive and credible relationships with a diverse group of business partners, across all levels of management; Successfully influences and negotiates to achieve buy-in through use of facts and analysis.
• Strong computer skills in Excel (macros, v-lookups, pivot tables, complex formulas, etc.).
• Analytic Skills: Ability to think objectively and interpret meaningful themes from quantitative and qualitative data.
• Financial and Business Acumen: Ability to evaluate and speak to financial and business indicators, and translate data into actionable information to drive results; Expert in retail math and financial measurement concepts, and how to influence them.
• Experience in Branded store chain environment.