Demand Planner (S&OP)

About Us

Symrise is a global supplier of fragrances, flavors, food, nutrition, and cosmetic ingredients. Its clients include manufacturers of perfumes, cosmetics, food and beverages, pharmaceuticals and producers of nutritional supplements and pet food.

Its sales of € 4.9 billion in the 2024 fiscal year make Symrise a leading global provider. Headquartered in Holzminden, Germany, the Group is represented by more than 100 locations in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, the United States and Latin America.

Symrise works with its clients to develop new ideas and market-ready concepts for products that form an integral part of everyday life. Economic success and corporate responsibility are inextricably linked as part of this process.

Symrise – always inspiring more…

About The Role

Position Summary

This Demand Planner role supports North America Sales & Operations (S&OP) demand planning process for Food & Beverages. Will lead the demand forecast for assigned items/customers in alignment with Sales supporting our one Go-To-Market approach. Based on historical data, trends, functional inputs and new product introductions, this role will provide visibility on our future demand and lead consensus where required to improve forecast accuracy, reduce inventory risk and increase speed to market.

Essential Duties And Responsibilities

• Drive monthly S&OP process for NA Food and Beverage and serves as key contact and connection point between commercial and operations team.
• Own and maintain the forecast in our planning systems (ForecastPro, Colibiri).
• Generate insights out of forecast, running actuals to forward forecasting analytics to understand the data, trend, seasonality, cycle etc. to improve the existing forecasting. Sense-check statistical forecasts and highlight any unexpected trends or projections. Challenge customer forecast where insights may show gaps.
• Partner and communicate closely with Sales and Customer Service teams to understand customer behaviors and other key information that can influence forecast changes.
• Work closely with customer service teams to analyze incoming customer orders and use demand sensing techniques to adjust short-term forecasts.
• Review and analyze forecast changes, conduct trend analysis, identifying risks / opportunities, and provide detailed analysis of changes, mitigation proposals.
• Ensures Monthly Consensus forecast from individual account S&OP process is maintained in proper ERP system to relay accurate demand signals to production planning.
• Work with production planning and operations teams to reconcile demand planning forecast vs supply plan to identify capacity issues or potentials for overproduction leading to excess/obsolete inventory.
• Use of advanced tools/techniques to do data cleaning, researching and collection of new data/demand drivers both internal and external, feature engineering, feature selection, selecting best models/algorithm using the right evaluation criteria to generate the most accurate forecast.
• Close collaboration with Customer Service, Production Planning, QC, Production and Logistics to drive efficient inventory level and on time delivery.
• Partner with Inventory Manager to identify risks of SLOBs and mitigate excess/obsolete inventory.
• Closely monitor new pipeline opportunities and align with BU and Sales teams on when opportunities must be converted into actionable forecast. Align on new item/business forecast and provide to production team to achieve customer lead time.
• Collaborate with cross-functional team to drive the overall management and execution Supply Chain projects like Inventory Task Force, Safety stock, forecast improvement, and reporting.
• Prepares Forecast Accuracy Report and KPI’s, identifying root cause of inaccuracies and coordinate actions for improvement.
• Support the Supply Chain and Operations teams in any relevant reporting needs,
  
  

About You

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration, Engineering, Supply Chain, or similar fields. Flavor and/or FMCG or related industry is an added advantage.
• 5 years of experience within Demand Planning or Supply Chain Planning.
• 3 years of experience with S&OP (Sales and Operations Planning).
• High level of proficiency in Microsoft Office.
• Must have the ability to perform advanced functions within Excel such as creating pivot tables and doing vLookups. Ability to write Excel Macros is a plus.
• Demonstrated proficiency in statistics, forecasting and forecasting methods with an understanding of their financial and operational impacts.
• Self-motivated, strongly disciplined and ability to collaborate with internal stakeholders and cross-functional teams.
• Strong analytical skills, sound judgement and drive for excellence.
• Must have experience with forecasting systems such as Colibri, Forecast Pro, or others.
• Experience with SAP or other ERP system is required.
• Experience with or a strong understanding of software related to demand planning is an added advantage.
• Experience with BI tools (MicroStrategy, Tableau) is preferred.
• This position is expected to travel domestically approximately once per quarter to our other locations within the continental US (South Carolina, Missouri, etc.)
  
  

What We Offer

Become part of our open and transparent culture. It will give you the opportunity to flourish and to develop inspiring experiences that contribute to the health and well-being of consumers in 160 countries around the world. Putting our employees in the focus fuels our strong company growth above market rates and makes us an excellent place to develop your career.

Come join us and embark on a fascinating journey with Symrise.

If you feel that you fit the above criteria, then please apply by using our online application system. Your application will be treated confidentially.

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, non-disqualifying physical or mental disability, national origin, veteran status or any other basis covered by appropriate law. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, merit, and business need.