Associate Manager, Demand Planning

Associate Manager, Demand Planner

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.