Demand Planner

Why this role exists:

The Demand Planner provides a clear and reliable view of expected customer demand across an assigned category portfolio. The role develops and maintains forecasts at the required product, location and channel levels, focusing on what customers are expected to buy without being influenced by supply constraints or current inventory levels.

The Demand Planner brings together statistical forecasts, historical demand, seasonality, promotions, product lifecycle changes and relevant commercial insights to create a shared view of future demand. The role monitors forecast performance explores significant changes and highlights potential risks and opportunities. Working closely with Category, Merchandise Planning, Finance, Supply Planning and Inventory Planning, the Demand Planner supports regular demand reviews, tests key assumptions and keeps a clear record of important forecast changes.

The agreed forecast helps teams make informed commercial, supply and inventory decisions, supporting product availability, healthy inventory levels and effective use of working capital.

Where you will make a difference:

Baseline Forecasting and Statistical Modelling

• Develop, validate and maintain statistical demand forecasts for the assigned category portfolio across the required product, location, channel and planning horizons.
• Analyse historical sales, demand patterns, seasonality and relevant market information to establish an objective baseline forecast in Relex.
• Identify and account for historical data distortions, including stockouts, lost sales, one-off orders, store closures, substitutions and other anomalies.
• Evaluate forecast performance across different product segments and apply forecasting approaches appropriate to their demand characteristics.
• Reconcile forecasts across relevant product, category, location and channel levels to maintain a coherent demand view.
• Maintain clear documentation of forecasting methods, assumptions and material adjustments.

Commercial Input and Event Forecasting:

• Translate promotional campaigns, seasonal events, product launches, range changes, pricing activity and business initiatives into quantified demand assumptions.
• Assess commercial inputs from Merchandise Planning, Category, Marketing, Stores and Online teams and incorporate adjustments where evidence supports the change.
• Develop forecasts for new products using comparable product performance, market information and agreed commercial assumptions.
• Assess substitution, cannibalisation and demand transfer impacts arising from product launches, range changes and product discontinuations.
• Construct base, upside and downside demand scenarios for significant events and market changes.
• Monitor demand during major events and product launches and revise assumptions where actual performance differs materially from the forecast.

Consensus Planning and Forecast Governance:

• Prepare and facilitate category demand reviews, presenting the statistical baseline, proposed overrides, key assumptions, risks and material forecast changes.
• Own the recommended demand forecast and facilitate agreement across commercial, financial and operational stakeholders.
• Maintain an objective, unconstrained view of expected customer demand, ensuring supply limitations and inventory targets do not distort the demand signal.
• Constructively challenge commercial inputs and proposed overrides that are not supported by evidence.
• Maintain auditable assumptions, override logs, approval records and decision documentation.
• Escalate unresolved forecast differences or material demand risks through the agreed planning governance process.
• Provide an approved demand signal to Supply Planning and Inventory Planning, while ownership of replenishment settings, purchase orders and store allocations remains with the relevant downstream planning teams.
• Quantify the demand and sales implications of alternative scenarios and work with downstream planning teams to assess inventory, availability and financial impacts.

Forecast Performance and Continuous Improvement:

• Monitor forecast accuracy, forecast bias and forecast value add across relevant product segments, locations and planning horizons.
• Investigate the root causes of material forecast misses and implement corrective actions to improve forecast performance.
• Evaluate whether commercial overrides improve forecast outcomes relative to the statistical baseline.
• Identify recurring data quality issues, model limitations and system defects affecting forecast reliability.
• Partner with Inventory Optimisation, Data and Technology teams to address system and data root causes and improve forecasting capability.
• Improve the quality and effectiveness of forecasting models in Relex, reducing overrides that do not add value.
• Complete forecasting activities and demand reviews in line with the agreed planning calendar and downstream decision requirements.
• Share forecasting insights, methods and lessons with Demand Planning peers to strengthen capability and consistency across the team.

Who you will be working with:

• Planning leadership and peers: Work with the Replenishment Manager and Demand Planning peers to align forecasting standards, planning priorities, cross-coverage and performance expectations.
• Merchandise Planning and Category: Partner with Merchandise Planners and Category Managers to incorporate range, pricing, promotional and category assumptions into the demand forecast.
• Marketing, Stores and Online: Gather relevant event, customer and channel insights and evaluate their impact on expected demand.
• Finance: Align the demand outlook with financial planning, explain material forecast movements and support the evaluation of commercial scenarios.
• Supply and Inventory Planning: Provide the agreed demand signal, communicate material risks and support assessment of supply, inventory and availability implications.
• Technology, Data and Inventory Optimisation: Analyse model performance, resolve data and system issues and improve planning platform capability.

What success looks like:

• Forecast accuracy and bias: Achieves agreed forecast accuracy and bias targets across the assigned category portfolio and relevant planning horizons.
• Forecast value add: Demonstrates that approved adjustments and overrides improve forecast outcomes relative to the statistical baseline.
• Demand plan timeliness: Delivers an approved demand signal in line with the planning calendar and downstream decision requirements.
• Consensus and transparency: Maintains clear assumptions, risks and decision records and resolves or escalates material differences through the agreed governance process.
• Forecast improvement: Identifies and addresses recurring drivers of forecast error, data quality issues and model limitations.
• Stakeholder effectiveness: Provides commercially relevant demand insight and constructively challenges assumptions to support informed decisions.
• Demonstrates behaviours aligned with Officeworks values and contributes to a respectful, inclusive and high-performing culture.

Individual Contributor

• Lives our Officeworks values and behaviours
• Proactively contributes to a safe working environment, escalates appropriately if there are unsafe conditions or inappropriate behaviour
• Operates in line with applicable Officeworks company policies and Code of Conduct
• Demonstrates a strong sense of personal accountability and curiosity to learn and develop
• Contributes to an inclusive and respectful environment where diverse perspectives are valued and everyone feels safe to speak up and belong

Essential:

• 3+ years experience in demand planning, statistical forecasting, merchandise planning, retail analytics or a related discipline.
• A tertiary qualification in supply chain, statistics, economics, commerce, finance, data analytics or a related discipline, or equivalent relevant experience.
• Experience developing or supporting product and category forecasts in a multi-store retail, consumer goods or comparable high-volume environment.
• Strong capability in statistical forecasting systems, demand analysis and advanced Excel.
• Demonstrated ability to analyse large datasets, identify data distortions and investigate the causes of forecast variance.
• Understanding of forecast accuracy, forecast bias and forecast value add measures.
• Commercial acumen and the ability to translate promotions, product changes and commercial assumptions into quantified demand scenarios.
• Strong communication and stakeholder management skills, including the ability to facilitate demand reviews and constructively challenge unsupported assumptions.
• Ability to manage competing priorities and deliver accurate outputs within an established planning cycle.

Preferred:

• Experience using Relex or a comparable demand planning platform.
• Experience using SAP ERP, Power BI, SQL or comparable enterprise analytics tools.
• Demand forecasting experience within office products, technology or high-SKU retail consumer goods portfolios.
• Experience forecasting promotions, new product launches, range transitions and seasonal events.