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The Role

Commercial Services Group (CSG) is one of the largest providers of public sector and education procurement services globally, with revenues of over £350m, 600 staff and five trading divisions: Resources, Energy, Recruitment, Facilities Services, and International Services.

Wholly owned by Kent County Council, CSG supports over 15,000 customers in 86 countries and collaborates with a supply chain of c1,000 suppliers.

The Education Supplies division of Commercial Services, trading as KCS, with an annual turnover of £25M, is the largest supplier of education resources to schools in the south east and has embarked on further territorial expansion as part of its growth plans for the future 

KCS holds a clear vision “to be recognised as the global leader in British educational procurement services” and has a very clear and comprehensive transformation strategy to achieve this vision.

As part of the transformation strategy, Inventory and stock availability are key to delivering an excellent customer experience.

As such, the Resources Division is recruiting an experienced Demand Planning Analyst sitting within the Purchasing, Projects and NPD Team.

Key Duties

The successful candidate will be responsible for:

• Forecasting – ensure effective use of Demand Planning tools to manage product forecast over a 24 month horizon, considering history, level, seasonality, tends and market intelligence. Improve forest accuracy (MAPE) in all areas. Strive toward best in class forecast accuracy through proactive benchmarking and analysis.  Identify areas of underperformance and ensure robust actions are in place to rectify or improve.  Regularly review the forecasting priority areas.
• Planning – using the replenishment planning tool evaluate the most economical buying and assembly strategies for individual products & kits. Advise on the best planning strategies (acknowledging MOV’s, Supplier holidays, MOQ’s, EOQ;s etc) to the PP & NPD Director and execute. Monitor, evaluate and make recommendations that will ensure continuous planning 
• Optimise Inventory to achieve 98%+ service levels & good stock health. Maximise and reduce excess and obsolete stock. Review and amend system settings to achieve optimal stock holding by SKU and the best Safety stock policy.  Communicate opportunities & improvement plans to the SLT..  Set annual inventory plan for the business as part of the budgeting process to SLT approval.
• Ensure the successful introduction of New products by applying the most appropriate forecasts, 1st buy strategies and safety stocks. Measure weekly sales performance tor year 1 products, highlight any over and under performance and act as necessary. Continue to improve the forecasting, planning and 1st buy strategies to ensure services levels of 98% are achieved.
• SKU rationalization – facilitate the annual SKU rationalization program to ensure we range optimization – recommend removal of under-performing lines.
• End of Life – facilitate the reduction of obsolete and excess stock by providing stock information to the Marketing team to help formulate clearance plans and by leading all activities that relate to stock disposal. Manage the clearance and proposal process for KCS.
• Finance & Operations Planning – generate inventory projections and MI reports for the business and for SLT approval. Provide an accurate appraisal of forward inbound activity and stock holding to the Operations team for their planning purpose.
• Sales Planning -facilitate in the translation of monthly sales insight into inventory forecasts working with purchasing and marketing to optimize stock availability.
• Deliver Improvement projects and initiatives that ensure optimal stock availability and improved service. Take responsibility for the forecasting and planning aspects of key business ventures.  Proactively benchmark against other large best in practice companies specifically, new products, forecast accuracy and end of lifecycle.

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