Demand Planning Analyst

From a small family business to a multi-billion-dollar global company, Sonoco has been changing the face of products and packaging since 1899 — all while keeping the heart of “People Build Businesses” alive.

Our talented people are at the core of our growth, constantly reinventing the Sonoco wheel with brilliant solutions every year. Today we are a world leader in global packaging solutions with diversified operations in over 34 countries. We're extremely proud of our portfolio of brands, our achievements in sustainability and industrialization and the groundbreaking work accomplished by our people. 

Reporting directly to the Associate Demand Planning Manager, you will be responsible for managing and adhering to the systems and processes that support the Demand Management for Rigid Paper North America. As a key member of the supply chain team, you will have the responsibility of developing a long-term demand plan through the S&OP process and supporting the customer teams on the short to mid-term plans. By leveraging statistical forecasting, cross-functional inputs, and analytical skills, this role will measure our success of the plan by utilizing available tools and key metrics.

What You’ll Be Doing:

• Creation of the “Consensus Forecast” using demand pillars (sales forecast, statistical forecast, customer forecast) and balancing the interests of Sales and Operations
• Evaluation and monitoring of different forecast sets (consensus forecast, sales forecast, statistical forecast), and make recommendations for improvement
• Regular collaboration with Sales to continuously update and optimize the consensus forecast
• Comparison of targets with actual business results, gap analysis of production and sales quantities
• Preparation and review of demand related reports, analysis and KPIs
• Understand financial expectations for customers in revenue and units; discuss and communicate gaps that exist
• Contribution direction to maximize demand planning metrics (forecast accuracy, bias) and demonstrate the correlation to business performance by
  • Identifying and deploying repeatable demand planning processes
  • Demonstrating the business impact and benefit of demand planning improvements
  • Identify and develop strategies and best practices as primary routes to drive and sustain improvement
• Support quarterly financial forecasting and yearly Budget generation
• Coordination with Finance regarding cross-plant revenue planning

• Become a business expert in the use of the corporate Demand Planning software
• Ensure correct data maintenance of all critical sources
• Evaluation and optimization of the relevant forecast parameters and statistical forecast models to continuously improve the statistical forecast
• Implementation and adoption of a software based KPI generation
• Close collaboration with the Global IT team to sustain and optimize the forecasting system
• Other duties as assigned

This position will be in in Charlotte, North Carolina with consideration for a partially remote work schedule.

We’d love to hear from you if:

• Bachelor’s Degree – BS/BA in Business, Finance, Marketing Supply Chain, Logistics is preferred with 1-2 years of Demand Planning experience or 5+ years of experience in Demand Planning in a fast-paced manufacturing organization
• Strong leadership, communication, and analytical skills
• Assertive, collaborative, and results oriented
• Success in working in a matrix environment
• Track record of cross-functional interaction preferred
• Strong working knowledge of systems (Oracle, Logility, Excel, Access, etc.)
• Ability to travel as needed to support business needs
• Demand Planning/ Statistical Forecasting Experience (Preferred)
• Experience with Sales & Operations Planning is strongly desired (Preferred)
• Financial acumen coupled with effective inter-personal style (Preferred)
• Position will require some travel with most being local. Some visits to corporate office in Hartsville, SC may be required

Compensation: 

The annual base salary range for this role is from $77,440 to $87,120.

We are an equal opportunity employer, and we strictly prohibit and do not tolerate discrimination against employees, applicants or any other covered persons because of race, color, religion, national origin or ancestry, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, marital status, gender identity or expression, age, disability, genetic information, veteran status, or any legally protected characteristic.