Role Brief:

To drive data-driven retail planning and business performance by leveraging advanced analytics, demand forecasting, inventory optimization, and assortment planning. The role is responsible for identifying growth opportunities, improving inventory productivity, and enhancing profitability through effective pre-season and in-season planning. As the organization adopts AI-driven automation, the incumbent will play a key role in solving complex business problems, developing analytical models, and enabling strategic decision making that improves sales, margins, and customer experience.

Job Responsibilities:

Lead Demand Planning, Merchandise Planning and OTB for Apparel and General Merchandise categories.
Develop and manage Open-to-Buy plans aligned with business targets, AOP, sales plans and inventory budgets.
Prepare demand forecasts using historical sales, seasonality, trends, promotions, pricing and external factors.
Drive store/category/SKU-level assortment, allocation and replenishment planning.
Monitor and optimize key KPIs including: Sell-through, Stock cover, Inventory days, Weeks of supply, GMROI, Markdown, Gross margin & Forecast accuracy
Conduct sales, inventory and trend analytics to identify business opportunities and risks.
Partner closely with Buying, Merchandising, Category, Supply Chain, E-commerce and Business teams.
Develop dashboards and automated reporting for planning and business performance.
Identify opportunities to leverage AI/ML and predictive analytics for demand forecasting, inventory optimization and planning automation.
Build forecasting models and analytical solutions using Python, SQL and BI tools.
Drive continuous improvement and automation of existing planning processes.
Lead and mentor the Retail Planning/Analytics team and manage deliverables effectively.

Skills & Experience:

5+ years of experience in the Retail industry, preferably with large-scale fashion/apparel or hypermarket businesses.
Strong hands-on experience in Retail Planning, Demand Planning, Merchandise Planning and OTB.
Strong understanding of Apparel and General Merchandise planning dynamics.
Strong analytical and commercial acumen with the ability to translate data into business decisions.
Exposure to AI/ML, predictive analytics and automation in retail planning is highly preferred.
Proficiency in Advanced Excel, SQL, Power BI, Python, Tableau etc.

Retail Planner (Apparel)