Demand Planner II

• Job Title: Demand Planner II (Internal/JD title: Senior Demand & Inventory Planner)
• Engagement Type: Temporary (3 months + potential extensions)
• Pay Rate: $28.36/hr W2
• Schedule: Full-time, 40 hours/week (flexible down to 32 hours / 4 days if requested); standard 8:00 AM - 5:00 PM (core collaboration window: 8:30 AM - 3:30 PM)
• Work Arrangement: Onsite 4 days/week (Monday - Thursday), Portland, OR

Join a forward-thinking leader in its industry, a company dedicated to innovation and excellence in product delivery. As a valued partner, SKILL is seeking exceptional talent to drive critical supply chain initiatives. This is an incredible opportunity to make a tangible impact, ensuring product availability and optimizing inventory strategies across diverse channels, including a rapidly growing ecommerce presence. Your expertise will directly shape customer satisfaction and financial performance, playing a pivotal role in the company's continued success.

About the Role

Step into a pivotal role where you will own the end-to-end demand plan and inventory strategy for a dynamic product portfolio. This position is central to balancing customer service with efficient inventory management, directly influencing key business outcomes. You will be the subject-matter expert, translating complex data into actionable insights and proactive solutions. This is your chance to lead critical cross-functional discussions, drive strategic decisions, and continuously improve planning processes, contributing significantly to both financial health and customer experience.

What You'll Do

Demand Planning Excellence

• Own the comprehensive demand forecast across all stocked product categories and sales channels.
• Integrate historical demand, seasonality, sales trends, project activity, new product launches, transitions, discontinuations, and market intelligence into robust forecasts.
• Develop and refine incremental demand assumptions specifically for ecommerce channels.
• Review planning system exceptions and apply expert judgment at the category level.
• Rigorously measure forecast accuracy, identify forecast bias, and analyze demand volatility.
• Conduct in-depth root-cause analysis when forecasts deviate materially from actual demand.
• Facilitate crucial cross-functional demand reviews with sales, product, finance, operations, and ecommerce stakeholders.

Strategic Inventory Management

• Translate approved demand forecasts into precise inventory requirements.
• Establish and recommend optimal safety-stock targets, reorder strategies, service-level expectations, and inventory policies.
• Proactively monitor weeks of supply, projected stockout dates, backorders, inventory investment levels, and identify excess or slow-moving inventory.
• Identify potential inventory gaps well in advance, allowing for timely business responses.
• Provide clear recommendations on buy quantities and required receipt timing to the supply planning team.
• Develop comprehensive inventory plans for new product launches, ecommerce expansion, samples, product transitions, and discontinuations.
• Strategically balance product availability against working-capital efficiency and the risk of excess inventory.

Ecommerce Readiness and Optimization

• Develop varied demand scenarios (conservative, expected, higher-growth) to support ecommerce performance.
• Compare ecommerce-adjusted demand against available inventory and confirmed incoming supply.
• Proactively identify ecommerce-enabled products at risk of stockout.
• Monitor early ecommerce selling behavior and dynamically adjust assumptions as actual demand materializes.
• Recommend initial inventory investments and ongoing replenishment actions for ecommerce assortments.
• Maintain a robust dashboard tracking ecommerce launch status and inventory risks.

Driving Business Insights

• Lead recurring reviews of category performance and inventory health.
• Present clear insights on inventory risks, gaps, opportunities, and strategic recommendations to leadership.
• Effectively communicate the financial and customer implications of planning decisions.
• Provide actionable decision recommendations, moving beyond mere data reporting.
• Serve as the demand-planning process owner and subject-matter expert for planning tools.
• Champion the improvement of planning discipline and adoption across the organization.

Key Deliverables

• Monthly consensus demand plan.
• Approved inventory requirements.
• Detailed ecommerce demand scenarios.
• Comprehensive inventory-health dashboard.
• Proactive stockout-risk report.
• Recommendations for managing excess and slow-moving inventory.
• Regular forecast accuracy and bias reporting.
• Strategic launch and lifecycle inventory plans.
• Monthly leadership inventory narrative.

Performance will be measured by:

• Forecast accuracy and bias.
• Effectiveness in stockout-risk identification.
• Achievement of service level and product availability targets.
• Optimization of inventory investment.
• Reduction of excess and slow-moving inventory.
• Successful adoption of planning recommendations.
• Alignment of ecommerce forecast versus actual performance.

What You'll Bring

Required Qualifications

• Minimum of 5 years of experience in demand planning, inventory planning, merchandise planning, supply-chain analytics, or a related field.
• Demonstrated strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Proven ability to translate complex data into clear, actionable business recommendations.
• Advanced proficiency in Excel and experience with reporting tools.
• Hands-on experience with ERP and demand-planning platforms.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills, capable of engaging diverse audiences.
• A strong ability to influence cross-functional decisions without direct authority.