Demand Planning Assistant / Specialist

We're Hiring: Demand Planning Assistant / Specialist

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 improving demand visibility, supply-chain responsiveness, inventory availability, and operational performance across diverse markets.

Our teams collaborate across Demand Planning, Supply Planning, Inventory, Sales, Marketing, Finance, Procurement, Operations, Logistics, and Technology to develop reliable demand insights and planning processes that support customer requirements and business objectives.

The Role

We are seeking an analytical and detail-oriented Demand Planning Assistant / Specialist to support demand forecasting, statistical analysis, sales planning, forecasting processes, demand reviews, and cross-functional planning activities.

The ideal candidate will analyze historical demand and market information, maintain accurate forecasting models and planning data, identify demand trends and risks, coordinate forecast inputs with stakeholders, and support the development of reliable demand plans for inventory, procurement, production, and distribution.

Key Responsibilities

• Support daily, weekly, and monthly demand-planning activities.
• Maintain demand forecasts across products, categories, markets, customers, channels, and locations.
• Collect and analyze historical sales, order, shipment, consumption, and demand data.
• Identify trends, seasonality, demand patterns, growth rates, anomalies, and changes in customer behavior.
• Prepare baseline statistical forecasts using approved forecasting methods and planning tools.
• Review forecast outputs and identify unusual or unrealistic results.
• Incorporate relevant business information into demand forecasts through established planning processes.
• Coordinate with Sales teams to collect customer demand inputs, pipeline information, account plans, and market intelligence.
• Coordinate with Marketing teams regarding promotions, campaigns, launches, pricing activities, and events that may affect demand.
• Coordinate with Product teams regarding new-product introductions, product changes, product discontinuations, and lifecycle plans.
• Coordinate with Finance regarding budgets, business plans, financial forecasts, and demand assumptions.
• Work with Supply Planning and Procurement teams to identify supply implications arising from demand changes.
• Support inventory-planning teams by providing updated demand forecasts and demand-risk information.
• Coordinate with Operations and Logistics teams regarding demand changes that may affect capacity, warehousing, transportation, or distribution requirements.
• Maintain the demand-planning calendar and ensure forecast activities are completed according to schedule.
• Prepare data and materials for demand-review meetings and cross-functional planning sessions.
• Consolidate stakeholder inputs and ensure assumptions are documented and traceable.
• Challenge significant forecast changes using objective data and documented business assumptions.
• Track forecast overrides and assess whether changes are supported by reliable information.
• Monitor forecast accuracy and identify recurring sources of forecast error.
• Analyze forecast bias and identify systematic over-forecasting or under-forecasting.
• Segment products or demand streams based on volume, variability, lifecycle, value, criticality, or other approved criteria.
• Apply appropriate forecasting approaches based on product and demand characteristics.
• Monitor intermittent, seasonal, promotional, new-product, and highly variable demand patterns.
• Support demand planning for new-product launches where historical demand is unavailable.
• Develop demand assumptions using comparable products, market information, customer inputs, launch plans, and approved business assumptions.
• Support product phase-out and end-of-life demand planning.
• Monitor demand changes associated with promotions, campaigns, price changes, market expansion, customer wins, and lost business.
• Identify demand risks associated with major customers, large orders, unusual market activity, or significant changes in customer behavior.
• Maintain accurate product, customer, market, channel, and location hierarchies used for forecasting.
• Maintain demand-planning master data, calendars, history, hierarchies, and planning parameters.
• Identify missing, inaccurate, duplicate, or inconsistent demand data and coordinate corrections.
• Validate sales and demand data before incorporating it into forecasting processes.
• Investigate demand anomalies, outliers, data gaps, and unexpected changes.
• Work with relevant teams to determine whether anomalies represent genuine demand changes or data issues.
• Monitor market and business indicators that may influence future demand.
• Support scenario planning for changes in demand, pricing, promotions, supply constraints, market conditions, or customer requirements.
• Develop demand scenarios for base, upside, downside, promotional, and other approved planning cases.
• Assess the potential impact of demand changes on inventory, procurement, production, transportation, and customer service.
• Communicate significant demand risks, opportunities, and forecast changes to relevant stakeholders.
• Support escalation of major forecast risks and unresolved demand assumptions.
• Maintain accurate records of forecast assumptions, overrides, decisions, and approvals.
• Prepare daily, weekly, and monthly demand-planning reports and dashboards.
• Track demand-planning KPIs and provide analysis of significant variances.
• Analyze forecast accuracy by product, category, customer, market, channel, location, and planning horizon.
• Monitor forecast performance at different time horizons, including short-term, medium-term, and longer-range planning.
• Support root-cause analysis for forecast errors, demand variability, stockouts, excess inventory, and service-level issues.
• Work with Inventory and Supply Planning teams to assess the consequences of forecast changes.
• Participate in Sales and Operations Planning or Integrated Business Planning processes where applicable.
• Support consensus-demand planning and ensure agreed assumptions are reflected in approved forecasts.
• Identify opportunities to improve forecasting methods, data quality, planning processes, and stakeholder collaboration.
• Support automation, advanced analytics, machine learning, and AI-assisted forecasting initiatives where appropriate.
• Evaluate forecast-model performance and support continuous improvement of forecasting techniques.
• Maintain clear planning documentation and ensure processes follow approved governance standards.

Key Performance Indicators

• Forecast accuracy
• Forecast bias
• Forecast error
• Mean absolute percentage error
• Weighted forecast accuracy
• Demand plan accuracy
• Baseline forecast accuracy
• Consensus forecast accuracy
• Forecast value added
• Forecast override accuracy
• Forecast stability
• Forecast adherence
• Demand-plan completion rate
• Planning-cycle adherence
• Forecast update timeliness
• Data accuracy
• Demand master-data accuracy
• Forecast exception resolution time
• Forecast variance
• Demand variability
• New-product forecast accuracy
• Promotional forecast accuracy
• Seasonal forecast accuracy
• Product lifecycle forecast accuracy
• Short-term forecast accuracy
• Medium-term forecast accuracy
• Long-term forecast accuracy
• Customer-level forecast accuracy
• Channel-level forecast accuracy
• Market-level forecast accuracy
• SKU-level forecast accuracy
• Forecast bias by segment
• Forecast error by segment
• Demand anomaly detection effectiveness
• Scenario-planning response time
• Stakeholder input completion
• Consensus-plan adoption
• Demand-risk identification lead time
• Forecast-related stockout rate
• Forecast-related excess inventory
• Forecast-related service-level impact
• Planning-data completeness
• Reporting accuracy
• Demand-planning process compliance
• Corrective-action closure rate
• Forecasting productivity
• Process improvement completion
• Planning cost efficiency

Ideal Candidate

The successful candidate should have strong experience in demand planning, forecasting, supply planning, inventory planning, sales operations, business analysis, or supply chain, preferably within retail, e-commerce, manufacturing, consumer products, wholesale, distribution, or other demand-driven environments.

The candidate should demonstrate:

• Strong understanding of demand planning and forecasting principles.
• Experience analyzing historical sales, orders, consumption, shipments, and demand patterns.
• Strong statistical and analytical capabilities.
• Understanding of seasonality, trends, demand variability, forecast bias, and forecast error.
• Experience developing, maintaining, and analyzing demand forecasts.
• Strong proficiency in Microsoft Excel and data-analysis tools.
• Experience using ERP, demand-planning, supply-chain planning, business-intelligence, or forecasting systems.
• Ability to work with large datasets and identify meaningful patterns and anomalies.
• Experience coordinating forecast inputs with Sales, Marketing, Finance, Product, Operations, and Supply Chain teams.
• Strong understanding of the relationship between demand forecasts, inventory, procurement, production, logistics, and customer service.
• Ability to challenge forecast assumptions constructively using data and documented evidence.
• Strong attention to detail and data accuracy.
• Ability to manage multiple products, markets, customers, channels, and planning cycles.
• Experience supporting S&OP or IBP processes is highly desirable.
• Understanding of statistical forecasting methods is highly desirable.
• Familiarity with advanced analytics, automation, machine learning, or AI-assisted forecasting is an advantage.
• Strong communication and stakeholder-management skills.
• Excellent reporting, presentation, and business-writing capabilities.
• Strong problem-solving and root-cause-analysis skills.
• Ability to work effectively in fast-paced and changing business environments.