Demand Planner

This is a key supply chain role for someone who can connect commercial plans, customer demand, historical performance, market activity, inventory exposure, and supply requirements.

As Demand Planner, you will develop and maintain the demand forecast across NCH’s multi-brand healthcare, pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, food, FMCG, and digital commerce portfolios. You will convert sales plans, promotional activity, new launches, tender opportunities, customer information, and market trends into a reliable SKU-level demand signal.

You will work closely with Sales, Marketing, Finance, Supply Planning, Key Accounts, and Digital Commerce to improve forecast accuracy, protect product availability, reduce excess and ageing inventory, and support effective working capital management.

What You Will Own

• Develop and maintain rolling SKU-level demand forecasts across short-, medium-, and long-term planning horizons.
• Consolidate demand requirements across brands, business units, customers, domestic trade, e-commerce, export, tenders, and other sales channels.
• Lead the monthly demand review process and support the wider Sales and Operations Planning process.
• Translate historical performance, seasonality, market trends, commercial plans, promotions, and customer activity into realistic demand assumptions.
• Partner with Sales and Marketing to review launches, campaigns, distribution expansion, pricing activity, and customer opportunities.
• Monitor forecast accuracy, forecast bias, forecast-versus-actual performance, and material changes in demand.
• Identify potential out-of-stock risks, excess inventory, slow-moving products, and near-expiry exposure before they affect customers or financial performance.
• Provide Supply Planning with an accurate and timely demand signal to support replenishment and purchasing decisions.
• Develop demand scenarios for tenders, new products, promotions, customer opportunities, and changes in market conditions.
• Build dashboards and reports that clearly communicate forecast performance, risks, opportunities, and required actions.
• Improve demand planning processes, system usage, data quality, forecast assumptions, and planning discipline across the organisation.

What Makes You a Strong Fit

• You understand how demand planning affects sales, product availability, customer service, inventory, expiry exposure, and working capital.
• You can balance statistical analysis with commercial knowledge and practical business judgement.
• You are confident challenging sales forecasts and commercial assumptions using data and evidence.
• You can distinguish genuine customer demand from exceptional orders, stock-outs, promotions, tenders, and one-off activity.
• You can translate large volumes of data into clear recommendations, risks, and actions.
• You are comfortable working across Sales, Marketing, Finance, Supply Chain, Digital Commerce, and senior stakeholders.
• You take ownership of forecast performance and actively address gaps rather than only reporting them.

Must Have

• Bachelor’s degree in Supply Chain Management, Business Administration, Engineering, Economics, Statistics, Data Analytics, or a related field.
• 3 to 5 years of relevant experience in demand planning, sales forecasting, supply chain planning, or a closely related analytical role.
• Proven experience developing and managing SKU-level demand forecasts in a multi-product environment.
• Hands-on experience using Microsoft Dynamics 365 for demand planning and forecasting.
• Advanced Microsoft Excel skills, including Power Query, PivotTables, lookup functions, data cleansing, and analytical modelling.
• Strong understanding of forecast accuracy, forecast bias, seasonality, trend analysis, demand segmentation, and exception management.
• Experience participating in or supporting a monthly demand review, S&OP, or Integrated Business Planning process.
• Strong analytical, communication, stakeholder management, and problem-solving skills.

Nice to Have

• Experience within pharmaceutical, healthcare, nutraceutical, FMCG, food, consumer goods, or another expiry-sensitive industry.
• UAE or GCC demand planning experience across multiple customers, channels, or business units.
• Experience forecasting tenders, promotions, new product launches, export demand, or e-commerce activity.
• Experience using Power BI or another business intelligence and data visualisation platform.
• Knowledge of inventory coverage, service levels, excess stock, slow-moving inventory, and near-expiry management.
• Experience working within a distributor, principal-led, or multi-brand portfolio environment.