Associate Inventory Planner- Lands' End School Outfitters

Lands' End•Dodgeville, WI

22d

About The Position

This role involves developing, executing, and communicating demand forecasts and inventory plans for assigned categories, programs, customers, or business segments. The Associate Inventory Planner will support inventory strategies aligned with customer service goals, account needs, merchandising strategies, sales objectives, and financial plans. Key responsibilities include delivering pre-season projections, inventory recommendations, and early commit needs. The planner will analyze historical data, identify risks and opportunities, and recommend inventory actions to meet sales, customer service, margin, fill rate, inventory turn, and GMROI goals. This position requires monitoring in-season business performance, updating plans, and recapping financial and inventory metrics. Collaboration with Sales, Program Management, Merchandising, and Sourcing is essential to understand business needs and support inventory decisions related to buy timing, replenishment, product lifecycle, liability, and service risk. The role also involves communicating business results and recommended actions to management and cross-functional partners, participating in seasonal planning and business reviews, and actively evaluating business results to recommend action steps.

Requirements

Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
Ability to connect inventory decisions to customer service, sales, margin, and inventory productivity.
Clear understanding of financial and inventory measurements, including sales, gross margin, GMROI, inventory turn, weeks on hand, weeks of supply, fill rate, and service levels.
Strong proficiency with Microsoft Excel required.
Able to develop and maintain strong working relationships with peers and cross-functional teams.
Strong listening, written, and verbal communication skills.
Able to present business updates, risks, opportunities, and action plans clearly.
Flexible and adaptive to changing priorities.
Able to organize and prioritize workload to meet deadlines.
Demonstrates proficiency in core responsibilities and routine planning tasks.
Works independently on routine responsibilities and requires limited supervision.
Contributes to team projects and collaborates effectively with peers.

Nice To Haves

Experience with planning, ERP, and reporting tools such as SAP S/4HANA, SAP CAR, o9 Solutions, Oracle Retail, Power BI, or similar platforms preferred.
Bachelor’s degree in Business, Supply Chain, Finance, Merchandising, Analytics, or related field preferred; equivalent experience considered.
2–5 years of relevant professional experience in inventory planning, demand planning, retail/business analysis, supply chain, merchandising, or related field preferred.

Responsibilities

Develop, execute, and communicate demand forecasts and inventory plans for assigned lower complexity categories, programs, customers, or business segments.
Support inventory strategies that align with customer service goals, account needs, merchandising strategies, sales objectives, and financial plans.
Deliver pre-season projections, inventory recommendations, and early commit needs for assigned areas.
Analyze historical sales, demand, productivity, service levels, inventory performance, and current trends to identify risks and opportunities.
Recommend inventory actions that support sales, customer service, margin, fill rate, inventory turn, and GMROI goals.
Monitor in-season business performance and update forecasts, inventory plans, and action steps in planning systems.
Recap and analyze key financial and inventory metrics versus plan, forecast, and prior year.
Partner with Sales, Program Management, Merchandising, and Sourcing to understand customer needs, account strategies, enrollment trends, product lifecycle, and selling expectations.
Support inventory decisions related to buy timing, replenishment, product lifecycle, liability, and service risk.
Communicate business results, forecasts, risks, opportunities, and recommended actions to manager and cross-functional partners.
Actively evaluate business results and recommend action steps to support achievement of plan.
Participate in seasonal planning, in-season business reviews, and key cross-functional meetings as appropriate.