Demand Planning & Allocations Analyst

About the Job:

The Demand Planning & Allocations Analyst plays a key role in ensuring Schylling has the right inventory, in the right quantities, at the right time, to meet customer demand.

This role combines demand planning, inventory analysis, forecasting, and inventory allocation. The Analyst will analyze historical sales, customer demand, open orders, inventory availability, incoming purchase orders, and supply constraints to develop actionable recommendations for purchasing, inventory planning, and customer fulfillment.

The position will also manage and optimize inventory allocations within our ERP (NetSuite), ensuring available and incoming inventory is appropriately allocated to customer orders based on demand, customer priorities, expected receipts, and business needs.

This role serves as a critical cross-functional partner to Sales, Purchasing, Customer Service, Operations, and Warehouse teams. The ideal candidate is highly analytical, detail-oriented, comfortable working with large amounts of data, and able to translate data into clear business recommendations.

Key Responsibilities:

Demand Planning & Forecasting

• Analyze historical sales, customer demand, seasonality, trends, promotions, new product launches, and other relevant demand signals to support accurate forecasting.
• Develop, maintain, and update demand forecasts for assigned products and categories.
• Analyze changes in customer demand and identify trends that may impact inventory requirements.
• Compare forecasted demand to actual sales and identify significant variances, trends, and potential risks.
• Partner with Sales, Marketing, and Product teams to incorporate business intelligence and upcoming activities into demand planning.
• Identify products with increasing or decreasing demand and assess the potential impact on inventory requirements.
• Support monthly and periodic demand planning processes and provide analysis to Supply Chain leadership.
• Monitor forecast accuracy and identify opportunities to improve planning assumptions and forecasting methodologies.
• Incorporate new product introductions, product transitions, promotions, seasonality, and other business factors into demand planning.
• Communicate significant changes in demand and potential supply implications to Purchasing and Supply Chain leadership.

Inventory Allocation

• Manage and optimize inventory allocations within NetSuite to support timely and accurate customer order fulfillment.
• Analyze available inventory, open sales orders, backorders, incoming purchase orders, and expected receipts to determine appropriate inventory allocations.
• Allocate and reallocate inventory based on customer demand, requested ship dates, customer priorities, supply availability, and business needs.
• Monitor inventory commitments and ensure allocations accurately reflect current inventory and supply expectations.
• Identify allocation conflicts, inventory shortages, and fulfillment risks and recommend appropriate solutions.
• Monitor incoming purchase orders and expected receipts to determine when inventory should be allocated to open customer demand.
• Partner with Warehouse and Operations teams to ensure inventory allocations support efficient fulfillment.
• Help establish and maintain inventory prioritization rules and allocation best practices.

Inventory & Supply Analysis

• Analyze supply versus demand to identify potential stockouts, excess inventory, and inventory imbalances.
• Monitor inventory levels and projected inventory positions against forecasted demand.
• Identify products at risk of stockouts and proactively communicate potential customer or revenue impacts.
• Identify excess or slow-moving inventory and provide analysis to support inventory reduction strategies.
• Analyze backorders and fill rates to identify recurring supply or allocation issues.
• Evaluate incoming supply and purchase order timing to understand potential impacts on customer fulfillment.
• Provide recommendations to Purchasing regarding inventory needs based on demand trends and projected requirements.
• Support inventory planning and replenishment decisions through data-driven analysis.

Reporting & Analytics

• Develop and maintain reporting related to demand forecasts, inventory availability, allocations, backorders, fill rates, inventory projections, and forecast accuracy.
• Build and maintain analysis and reporting tools to support supply chain decision-making.
• Analyze large data sets and translate findings into clear, actionable recommendations.
• Identify trends, exceptions, and potential issues requiring management attention.
• Provide regular reporting and analysis to Supply Chain leadership and cross-functional stakeholders.
• Continuously improve reporting processes and identify opportunities to automate or streamline recurring analysis.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Serve as a key point of contact for demand, inventory, and allocation questions.
• Partner closely with Sales, Purchasing, Customer Service, Operations, Warehouse, and Finance teams.
• Communicate inventory shortages, demand changes, forecast variances, allocation decisions, and fulfillment risks.
• Work with Sales and Customer Service to understand customer priorities and anticipated demand.
• Partner with Purchasing to align incoming supply with projected demand and inventory requirements.
• Collaborate with Operations and Warehouse teams to ensure inventory plans and allocations translate effectively into fulfillment.
• Provide data and analysis to support cross-functional supply chain decisions.

Process Improvement

• Identify opportunities to improve demand planning, inventory allocation, forecasting, and reporting processes.
• Develop and recommend improvements to planning methodologies and allocation procedures.
• Identify system or process issues that may affect inventory accuracy, forecasting, allocations, or customer fulfillment.
• Support improvements to NetSuite planning, reporting, and allocation functionality.
• Establish and maintain standard processes and documentation for demand planning and inventory allocation.
• Participate in supply chain projects and initiatives designed to improve inventory availability, forecast accuracy, and customer service.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Supply Chain, Business, Operations, Analytics, Finance, or a related field
• 2–5 years of experience in demand planning, inventory planning, inventory allocation, supply planning, purchasing, supply chain analytics, or a related field.
• Hands-on experience with demand planning, forecasting, or analyzing customer demand and sales trends strongly preferred.
• Experience with inventory allocation and/or order management
• Hands-on experience with NetSuite or a comparable ERP system; NetSuite experience strongly preferred.
• Strong understanding of demand planning, forecasting, inventory management, sales orders, purchase orders, backorders, fulfillment, and supply/demand balancing.
• Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Excel, including formulas, lookups, pivot tables, data analysis, and working with large data sets.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with the ability to identify trends, evaluate data, and make sound business recommendations.
• Strong attention to detail and ability to maintain data accuracy.
• Excellent organizational and time-management skills with the ability to manage multiple priorities.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to make informed decisions and recommendations when supply is constrained or demand changes quickly.
• Experience with consumer products, toys, gifts, wholesale, retail, or distribution preferred.
• Experience with forecasting tools, demand planning software, or statistical forecasting methods is a plus.
• Ability to work on site three days per week

The base salary range for this position is $70,000 to $85,000. Offered base compensation within this range will be determined based on a candidate’s qualifications, experience, geographic location and other factors relevant to the scope and responsibilities of this role.

Schylling offers a competitive benefits package that includes medical and dental with an 80% company contribution, vision insurance, company-paid life and disability insurance, PTO and 10 paid holidays, product discount, and a 401(k) with company match.