Owndays - Buying and Planning Lead

Job description

Mission Brief: Build the Intelligence Layer That Moves Owndays' Global Merchandise Owndays is a global eyewear brand with a rapidly expanding footprint across Asia, the Middle East, and beyond. Operating an integrated value chain across design, manufacturing, retail, and e-commerce, Owndays is building a tech-enabled, data- led omni-channel business. With thousands of SKUs and a complex supplier network, we are reimagining how merchandise flows — from vendor to warehouse to customer — with intelligence, precision, and speed. This is not a role about managing stock. It is about building the intelligence layer that ensures the right product is in the right place at the right time — powered by data, driven by AI, and led by you. As Buying, Planning & Merchandise Lead, you will own the strategic and operational command of Owndays' end-to-end merchandise flow — from demand sensing and OTB to vendor capacity and warehouse inflow — turning raw signals into precision decisions and transforming replenishment from reactive to predictive. This is a hands-on leadership role that will require needs-based travel across Owndays' geographies — to work directly with vendors, manufacturing partners, warehouses, and regional teams as the business demands. Core Mandate: Turning Merchandise Flow Into a Data-Led Advantage Demand Forecasting & S&OP • Global Forecast Ownership: Own demand forecasting across all categories, channels, and regions — frames, lenses, sunglasses, and accessories. • Forecast Accuracy: Drive forecast accuracy through disciplined S&OP cycles, sell-through analysis, and seasonality modelling; set and own MAPE/WAPE targets that are best-in-class for a retailer of Owndays' complexity. • One Demand View: Translate top-down financial plans and bottom-up category plans into a single, executable demand view. • ML-Driven Sensing: Lead the adoption of machine learning-based demand sensing tools; partner with Data Science and Engineering to sharpen algorithms and replenishment triggers. 2. Open-to-Buy & Buying Planning • OTB Ownership: Own the Open-to-Buy process end-to-end — building, tracking, and re-forecasting across seasons. • Inflow & Assortment Planning: Manage inflow planning, phasing, and depth-vs-breadth decisions aligned to sales, stock cover, and margin targets; partner with buying and category teams to convert assortment plans into actionable buy quantities. • Dynamic Forecasting: Move the organisation from static planning models to dynamic, AI-assisted forecasting that responds in real time to demand signals and fashion cycles. 3. Vendor Capacity Planning & Procurement Intelligence • Capacity Planning: Lead capacity planning with the vendor base — aligning monthly and weekly production capacity with the demand plan, locking capacity ahead of peak periods, and managing flex during demand swings. • Vendor Visibility: Build visibility into vendor performance across capacity utilisation, on-time delivery, and fill rates. • Data-Backed Negotiation: Bring data to every sourcing negotiation, balancing Economic Order Quantities with the speed demands of a fashion-adjacent business, and build the supplier frameworks that make Owndays' supply relationships a genuine competitive advantage. 4. Lead-Time Reduction & Inflow Management • Cycle Time Reduction: Drive reduction of lead times across the vendor-to-warehouse cycle through better planning rhythm, order release discipline, and vendor collaboration. • Inbound Predictability: Improve PO-to-receipt timelines, in-transit visibility, and warehouse inbound predictability. • Network Smoothing: Work with logistics and warehousing teams to smooth inflow, reduce bullwhip effects, and improve network-wide service levels. 5. End-to-End Inventory Operations • Full Lifecycle Ownership: Own the full inventory lifecycle — from purchase order strategy to stock monitoring, cycle integrity, and shrinkage controls. • Systems & Accuracy: Leverage ERP/WMS platforms to drive 98%+ inventory accuracy while continuously eliminating process waste through automation and lean principles. • Inventory Health: Own inventory health across warehouses — turns, cover, ageing, excess — and drive allocation and replenishment models that maintain availability with controlled markdowns. • Scalable Guardrails: Design systems and guardrails that scale as the business expands across new geographies. 6. Cross-Functional Leadership & Data Culture • Commercial Partnership: Partner with Retail Operations, Merchandising, Finance, E-commerce, Sourcing, and Manufacturing to ensure inventory strategy serves commercial goals. • Leadership Communication: Present insights, KPIs, and strategic recommendations to senior leadership with clarity and conviction. • Team Building: Build, mentor, and lead a high-performance planning and merchandise supply chain team. • Data-First Culture: Make data-driven inventory decisions the organisational norm — bring the wider team along on the journey from intuition to intelligence. The Essentials • Experience: Proven experience in inventory management, merchandise planning, buying planning, or supply chain roles, including at least 5 years in a strategic leadership capacity. • Track Record at Scale: Demonstrated experience in high-SKU, omni-channel, or retail-at-scale environments, spanning demand forecasting, OTB management, vendor capacity planning, and lead-time reduction. • Commercial Acumen: Strong understanding of inventory turns, fill rates, markdowns, and working capital. • Technical Depth: Hands-on fluency with ERP/WMS platforms and advanced analytics tools (e.g., SAP, Oracle, Anaplan, or equivalent), with practical experience applying forecasting methodologies — time-series, statistical, ML- assisted — to real inventory decisions. • Domain Exposure: Background in retail, eyewear, fashion, consumer goods, or another fast-moving category with high SKU complexity; exposure to automated warehouses, phygital retail models, or in-house manufacturing ecosystems is a strong advantage. Consulting backgrounds are welcome, provided they come with deep operational exposure. Education Bachelor's degree in Supply Chain, Engineering, Operations Research, Business, or a related quantitative field; an MBA or advanced degree is preferred. Travel: Willingness to travel on a needs basis across global markets to work directly with vendors, manufacturing partners, and regional teams. The Mindset AI-Native Thinking You don't just use data — you build systems that generate it, interpret it, and act on it, and see merchandise planning as a technology problem as much as an operations one. Precision at Scale You are energised by complexity — millions of SKUs, hundreds of vendors, multiple geographies — and bring rigour and clarity to decisions others find overwhelming. Ownership Mentality When a stockout happens or inventory turns slip, you take responsibility for solving it and hold yourself and your team to a high standard. Builder's Drive You want to design new systems, challenge legacy processes, and leave behind a playbook that didn't exist before you. Versatile Communication You can walk a boardroom through working capital strategy and walk a warehouse floor with equal ease