Allocation Manager

We're Hiring: Allocation Manager

Location: United Arab Emirates (Remote)

Employment Type: Full-Time

Experience Level: Mid-Level to Senior

Work Arrangement: Fully Remote

About Us

We are a globally focused organization committed to optimizing inventory, product availability, and resource distribution across diverse markets and sales channels. Our teams combine Merchandising, Planning, Supply Chain, Procurement, Logistics, Sales, Finance, Operations, and Commercial expertise to ensure the right products and resources are available in the right locations at the right time.

The Role

We are seeking an experienced Allocation Manager to lead allocation strategy, inventory distribution, replenishment coordination, stock balancing, and product availability across stores, markets, channels, warehouses, and customer segments.

The ideal candidate will use demand insights, inventory data, commercial priorities, and analytical models to optimize product distribution, reduce stock imbalances, support launches and seasonal events, and maximize sales and inventory productivity.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and implement allocation strategies aligned with sales, merchandising, inventory, and commercial objectives.
• Manage the distribution of inventory across stores, markets, channels, warehouses, and other fulfillment locations.
• Determine optimal inventory quantities by location based on demand, sales potential, stock levels, capacity, and customer requirements.
• Analyze historical sales, demand forecasts, inventory positions, sell-through, stock cover, and product performance.
• Translate demand and merchandise plans into detailed allocation requirements.
• Develop allocation rules, parameters, thresholds, and methodologies for different product categories and markets.
• Establish allocation strategies for new product launches, seasonal collections, promotions, events, and major commercial campaigns.
• Coordinate initial allocations and replenishment requirements throughout the product lifecycle.
• Monitor product availability and identify stockout risks, excess inventory, and imbalances between locations.
• Reallocate inventory between stores, warehouses, markets, and channels to improve availability and inventory productivity.
• Coordinate stock transfers and inventory balancing activities with Supply Chain, Logistics, and Operations teams.
• Prioritize inventory allocation based on commercial performance, customer demand, strategic importance, and operational constraints.
• Consider store characteristics, market potential, customer demographics, sales history, seasonality, and local preferences when allocating products.
• Develop location clusters and allocation profiles where appropriate.
• Incorporate store capacity, warehouse capacity, display requirements, minimum presentation quantities, and operational constraints into allocation decisions.
• Coordinate allocation of limited, high-demand, promotional, or strategically important products.
• Establish allocation approaches for slow-moving, discontinued, seasonal, and end-of-life inventory.
• Support markdown and clearance strategies by identifying inventory that requires redistribution or accelerated sell-through.
• Coordinate with Merchandising and Category teams on assortment changes, SKU introductions, exits, and product lifecycle decisions.
• Work with Demand Planning to align allocation decisions with demand forecasts and supply availability.
• Coordinate with Procurement and Supply Planning teams regarding inbound inventory, supplier lead times, purchase orders, and expected receipts.
• Work with Warehouse and Logistics teams to ensure allocated inventory can be picked, packed, transferred, and delivered according to plan.
• Partner with Sales and Commercial teams to address customer, market, and channel-specific allocation requirements.
• Collaborate with Finance to assess inventory investment, working capital, sales potential, and profitability implications.
• Develop allocation scenarios for constrained supply, unexpected demand changes, supply disruptions, and capacity limitations.
• Conduct what-if analysis to evaluate alternative allocation strategies and expected commercial outcomes.
• Monitor allocation performance and adjust parameters based on actual sales and inventory behavior.
• Identify recurring allocation issues and develop corrective actions.
• Establish exception-management processes for stock shortages, overstock, delayed receipts, unexpected demand, and operational disruptions.
• Monitor allocation execution and ensure inventory reaches intended locations within required timelines.
• Investigate allocation errors, incorrect quantities, delayed transfers, and inventory discrepancies.
• Maintain allocation calendars, planning schedules, allocation parameters, and inventory-distribution documentation.
• Develop allocation dashboards and reports covering availability, sell-through, inventory balance, transfers, exceptions, and commercial performance.
• Establish KPIs for allocation accuracy, product availability, inventory productivity, and allocation efficiency.
• Conduct regular allocation reviews with Merchandising, Planning, Supply Chain, Operations, Sales, and Finance teams.
• Provide recommendations for improving allocation models, inventory distribution, and replenishment processes.
• Support inventory optimization initiatives designed to reduce excess stock and improve working-capital efficiency.
• Evaluate the effectiveness of automated allocation and replenishment systems.
• Improve allocation processes through advanced analytics, machine learning, automation, and decision-support tools where appropriate.
• Maintain accurate product, location, inventory, and allocation master data.
• Ensure allocation decisions comply with inventory policies, commercial priorities, and operational controls.
• Support business continuity planning for major supply disruptions and demand fluctuations.
• Participate in new-store openings, market expansions, relocations, and channel launches by developing appropriate inventory-allocation plans.
• Support e-commerce and omnichannel allocation requirements, including store fulfillment, online inventory availability, and channel balancing.
• Monitor channel inventory conflicts and coordinate solutions between physical and digital sales channels.
• Benchmark allocation practices and identify opportunities to improve inventory availability and sales performance.
• Manage allocation analysts or planners where applicable and provide coaching, technical guidance, and performance support.
• Establish standard operating procedures and training materials for allocation processes.
• Prepare regular management reports covering allocation performance, risks, opportunities, inventory imbalances, and improvement initiatives.

Key Performance Indicators

• Allocation accuracy
• Product availability
• Stockout rate
• In-stock rate
• Sell-through rate
• Inventory turnover
• Stock cover
• Weeks of supply
• Excess inventory rate
• Aged inventory
• Inventory imbalance
• Sales lost due to stockouts
• Allocation-to-sales conversion
• Initial allocation performance
• Replenishment effectiveness
• Allocation cycle time
• Allocation execution accuracy
• Inventory transfer accuracy
• Transfer completion time
• Transfer utilization
• Store inventory productivity
• Warehouse inventory productivity
• Channel inventory availability
• E-commerce inventory availability
• Forecast-to-allocation accuracy
• Allocation exception rate
• Allocation exception resolution time
• New-product launch allocation performance
• Seasonal allocation performance
• Promotional allocation performance
• Markdown inventory reduction
• Inventory write-off reduction
• Working-capital efficiency
• Gross margin contribution
• Revenue contribution
• Allocation cost efficiency
• Automated allocation adoption
• Allocation system data accuracy
• Planning process compliance
• Stakeholder satisfaction
• Continuous-improvement savings

Ideal Candidate

The successful candidate should have strong experience in inventory allocation, merchandise planning, inventory planning, supply chain planning, retail planning, replenishment, or commercial inventory management, preferably within retail, e-commerce, consumer products, fashion, distribution, or other multi-location environments.

The candidate should demonstrate:

• Strong understanding of inventory allocation, replenishment, merchandise planning, and supply chain processes.
• Experience allocating inventory across stores, markets, channels, warehouses, or customer segments.
• Strong analytical skills and ability to interpret sales, demand, inventory, and product-performance data.
• Experience developing allocation models, rules, parameters, and planning methodologies.
• Strong understanding of stock availability, sell-through, inventory productivity, stock cover, and working capital.
• Experience supporting new product launches, seasonal collections, promotions, and product lifecycle management.
• Strong understanding of demand forecasting and the relationship between demand, supply, and allocation.
• Experience coordinating with Merchandising, Planning, Procurement, Supply Chain, Logistics, Sales, and Finance teams.
• Strong problem-solving and exception-management capabilities.
• Experience developing allocation scenarios and responding to supply or demand constraints.
• Strong understanding of inventory transfers and stock-balancing processes.
• Experience with ERP, merchandise-planning, allocation, replenishment, WMS, and business-intelligence systems.
• Strong Excel and quantitative-analysis capabilities; experience with advanced analytics tools is desirable.
• Familiarity with automation, machine learning, or optimization models is an advantage.
• Strong project-management and stakeholder-management skills.
• Excellent attention to detail and data accuracy.
• Ability to manage multiple categories, locations, channels, deadlines, and competing priorities.
• Strong communication and presentation skills.
• Commercial awareness and ability to connect allocation decisions with sales, margin, and customer outcomes.
• Experience managing analysts or planning teams is desirable.
• Experience working with international and distributed teams is highly desirable.