Product Planning Manager

About the role

The Senior Product Planning Manager will lead product planning across a diverse automotive portfolio, managing relationships with over 25 suppliers and ensuring availability of thousands of SKUs. This position drives strategic sourcing, optimises product flows and directly impacts the P&L at both enterprise and ARG Automotive levels.

Key responsibilities

• Build multi‑year product planning strategy aligned to revenue, margin and policy parameters such as service levels and safety‑stock.
• Lead the cross‑functional Sales & Operations Planning cycle, integrating demand, supply, commercial and finance inputs.
• Own category strategies for tyres, lubricants, batteries, parts, accessories and workshop equipment, negotiating terms and service levels with suppliers.
• Develop and maintain forecasting models in SAP, optimise reorder points, lead times and MOQ/MFQ, and manage weekly exception handling.
• Create a Power BI analytics suite for planning health dashboards and automate exception alerts.

Required profile

• Bachelor’s degree in supply chain, procurement, business or engineering; Master’s (MBA) preferred.
• 10+ years of progressive planning or supply‑chain experience in automotive distribution or related FMCG/retail sectors.
• Proven track record in contract management, cost optimisation and leading multi‑branch teams.

Required skills

• SAP (advanced planning module)
• Power BI for analytics and dashboarding
• Lean Six Sigma methodology
• PMP certification (preferred)