SUMMARY DESCRIPTION
We are seeking a highly skilled and detail-oriented Inventory Planner to join the Lacoste USA Outlet team. In this role, you will oversee the inventory, allocation and replenishment of our seasonal, basic, and transfer assortment, ensuring that the right products are available in the right quantities, at the right time, to support business objectives and customer needs. The Inventory Planner will work closely with the merchandise planning team, buying and Outlet business leads to maximize stock efficiencies by crafting the total allocation needs for the business. They also need to ensure proper inventory management between the 3PL’s with optimization of stock to maximize sales.
ESSENTIAL JOB DUTIES
- Responsible and accountable for the inventory forecast (inbound and outbound), Inventory analysis and budget planning in close partnership with the Planning, Operations, Finance, and Merchandising teams.
- Design, produce, and enhance reporting, dashboards, and tools for cross functional team pertaining to inventory and allocation, identifying opportunities for standardization and automation of processes and leveraging best practices from cross-functional and global teams.
- Create and maintain all allocation reporting including, but not limited to: Sales to Stock, Allocation recaps, Store Capacity report, In-bound tracker, high turn styles, core replenishment, MOH etc.
- Monitor stock levels, sales performance, historical data, market leader feedback and emerging trends to drive allocation plans at weekly level leading up to a rolling forecast for 3PL’s
- Maximize and identify inventory opportunities through transfers within channels and across regions, including 3rd party sell offs.
- Seasonally develop key allocation strategies and approaches to the business that will help drive sell through and top-side sales by partnering closely with Regional Directors, Merchandise Planning, and Buying team
- Partner with planning to maximize pricing and promo strategy to maximize gross and net margin
- Partner closely with 3PL team - Logistics/Operations and Order Fulfillment to streamline the allocation function to maximize efficiency and profitability.
- Responsible for all special project allocations including collaborations, events, and new store openings
- Complete initial and replenishment allocations as needed
SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE
- Minimum of 5-7 years’ experience in Allocation, in both big and small door companies
- Strong cross-functional partnership skills, highly detail-oriented and organized
- Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint expertise: must be able to analyze large volumes of data in excel and be able to distill analysis into digestible presentations
- Four year college degree
CORE COMPETANCIES
- Initiative: Actively strives to achieve goals beyond the minimum level of performance. A self-starter who has the ability to work well without close supervision.
- Mathematical: Must be proficient working with numbers to ensure correctness of date produced when compiling large volumes of data on a spreadsheet for analysis.
- Analytical: Must be able to identify and react to business trends in various markets.
- Organized: Must be able to develop a system that will enable you to gather and retrieve information quickly.
- Communication: Able to communicate clearly and productively with various business partners to foster open communication and to establish good working relationships within the business.
Core Values and Traits:
Play as One Team:
- Showing respect towards everyone
- Commitment for the team’s work and decisions
Play with Elegance:
- Striving for excellence
- Treating others with fair play and humility
Play by Daring:
- Having the courage to speak up, experiment and take initiative
- To explore new opportunities
Play with Tenacity:
- Constantly seek continuous improvement
- Learning from our failures
At Lacoste, we’re committed to building the best team we can. We hire for potential and support every team member through each step of their career development. Building a diverse, equitable, and inclusive space for our team to think differently and push the status quo is incredibly important to us; and we strive to use these guiding principles as the foundation for how we interact with each other, how we build our business, and how we hold ourselves accountable to our core values.
Equal Opportunity Employer:
At Lacoste, we’re committed to providing equal opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment regardless of their race, color, religion, creed, gender/sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, national origin, ancestry, citizenship status, age, disability, genetic information, marital status, pregnancy, military status, veteran status, and/or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, and local laws.
* This job description is not intended to be exhaustive. They can be changed orally or in writing at any time by the discretion of management.We as Lacoste associates must also always ensure that all functions of our position are represented with our core values.
