Puma - Assistant Manager - Retail Planning & New Initiatives

POSITION TITLE: ASSISTANT MANAGER - RETAIL PLANNING & NEW INITIATIVES

BASIC FUNCTION:

Work on business impacting projects in the Retail space with special emphasis on Retail Planning, driving new and ongoing initiatives in Retail.

ORGANIZATIONAL RELATIONSHIPS:

The incumbent will report to the Manager for Product Planning. The person will have exposure to all departments impacting Retail (Ops, Training, VM, Finance, HR, Marketing, Merchandising, Planning, and Projects/BD).

PRINCIPLE RESPONSIBILITIES:

- Optimization-related projects: Understanding of the sales funnel, identification of the 'loss of sales' areas and definition of an optimization plan. Examples: How to improve conversion in stores, How to optimize the merchandise mix etc

- Project Management:

- Manage existing/ initiate new projects to:

- Enhance in-store customer experience

- Increase efficiency of sales staff

- Acquire new customers by identifying technologies, schemes and ideas to engage them. Also, interacting and coordinating with Marketing and VM departments to drive traffic/ walk-ins.

- Coordinating and working with vendors, as required, to manage Retail projects

- Internal process-oriented projects:

- Standardization of procedures: reporting charts, PUMA operational tools.

- Special projects like assisting the Planning Manager in testing and evaluating the impact of various transversal initiatives conducted at a particular store, before potential roll out.

- Preparation of periodic reports and analytics around sales performance, target forecasting, etc

- Work closely with Retail Operations and Merchandising team to set standard processes and measures leading to improved efficiency

- Competition Bench marking - Tracking Sales, other KPIs, overall Retail parameters

- Retail Planning:

- Ensuring the smooth functioning of the Auto-Replenishment System

- Weekly analysis of store sales/gross margins/sell-thru/comp

- EOSS stock planning, sales monitoring and ensure Post EOSS Stock targets

- Developing tools and techniques to improve and streamline the merchandising process in coordination with the Manager of Merchandise Planning

- Formulating & executing projects leading to improved sales in retail stores

KNOWLEDGE & SKILLS:

- Excellent Excel Skills, knowledge of VBA would be preferred

- Strong analytical and project management skills

- Entrepreneurial mindset

- Strong people skills

- Strong sense of ownership and ability to drive projects

EXPERIENCE REQUIRED:

- MBA from Tier 1 institute with under-graduation in Engineering

- 2-4 years of work experience post MBA in the Retail industry