Overview
The role of the S&OP manager is pivotal in aligning diverse business functions to effectively meet demand. This position oversees the integration of sales forecasts with production planning and inventory control, addressing a critical challenge faced by organizations today. Essential skills in forecasting, analytics, and cross-functional collaboration are required, enabling organizations to make data-driven decisions. Such decisions not only enhance operational efficiency but also significantly improve customer satisfaction.
Core Responsibilities
- Demand & Supply Reconciliation: Translate marketing and sales forecasts into actionable manufacturing and procurement plans, factoring in seasonal peaks and promotional launches.
- Meeting Facilitation: Orchestrate monthly S&OP cycles (Demand Review, Supply Review, and Executive Alignment) to resolve imbalances.
- Inventory & Obsolescence Management: Balance high customer service levels with tight working capital. Actively manage the lifecycle of short-shelf-life ingredients and limited-edition product batches.
- New Product Launch (NPL) Support: Collaborate closely with R&D, Packaging, and Marketing to ensure flawless timing and supply availability for major global/regional beauty campaigns.
- Performance Monitoring: Define and track KPIs such as forecast accuracy, On-Time In-Full (OTIF), inventory turnover, and Days Sales of Inventory (DSI).
Demand & Supply Integration
- Consolidate Forecasts: Partner with marketing and sales to transform raw data, historical trends, and promotional plans into a reliable demand plan.
- Evaluate Constraints: Collaborate with manufacturing and procurement to cross-examine material availability, labour capacities, and supplier limits.
- Balance the Blueprint: Continuously tweak supply models to accurately fulfill unconstrained market demand without inflating operational overheads.
3. Financial & Strategic Alignment
- Bridge Budgets: Map out operational and production choices directly against the finance department's revenue and working capital targets.
- Product Lifecycle Tracking: Oversee product review phases, checking the supply impact of new product introductions (NPI) and product phase-outs.
- Present Executive Action: Transform massive multi-system data sets into visual, concise presentations detailing trade-offs and decision criteria for executive sign-off.
Key Qualifications & Skills
- Education: Bachelor's degree in Supply Chain Management, Industrial Engineering, or Business Administration. APICS/ASCM (CSCP/CPIM) certifications are highly valued.
- Experience: 5 to 10 of years of end-to-end supply chain planning experience, typically with 2+ years leading an S&OP process or demand/supply planning team within FMCG, luxury, or cosmetics.
- Technical Acumen: Advanced proficiency with ERP systems (SAP, Oracle) and dedicated planning and forecasting software.
- Soft Skills: Exceptional cross-functional leadership and stakeholder management abilities. Must possess strong executive communication skills to present risks and trade-offs to senior leadership.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
The performance of an S&OP function is usually calculated using five operational pillars:
Metric
Business Focus
Forecast Accuracy & Bias
Minimizing discrepancies between demand plans and true consumer sales.
Inventory Turnover Rate
Eliminating waste and maintaining healthy, lean working capital levels.
On-Time In-Full (OTIF)
Securing reliable customer delivery windows and high order fill rates.
Capacity Utilization
Optimizing internal factory production lines and machinery runtime.
Work Location: Remote
