Inventory Planning Manager

We're Hiring: Inventory Planning Manager

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 delivering strong commercial performance through effective inventory planning, demand management, supply coordination, and operational excellence across international markets.

Our teams work across Merchandising, Procurement, Supply Chain, Finance, Sales, Operations, Logistics, E-commerce, and regional stakeholders to ensure the right products are available in the right quantities, markets, channels, and timeframes while maintaining healthy inventory investment.

The Role

We are seeking an experienced

Inventory Planning Manager

to lead inventory planning, forecasting, replenishment, stock optimization, inventory performance management, and cross-functional planning activities across products, locations, channels, and markets.

The ideal candidate will combine strong analytical capability with commercial and operational judgment to improve product availability, inventory productivity, working capital efficiency, and service levels while minimizing excess, obsolete, and slow-moving stock.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and implement inventory planning strategies aligned with commercial, supply chain, and financial objectives.

• Lead inventory planning across products, categories, stores, warehouses, markets, and sales channels.

• Develop inventory targets based on demand, sales plans, lead times, service levels, seasonality, and supply constraints.

• Prepare short-, medium-, and long-term inventory plans and forecasts.

• Analyze historical sales, demand patterns, seasonality, promotions, product lifecycles, and market trends.

• Translate sales forecasts and commercial plans into inventory requirements.

• Establish appropriate safety-stock, reorder-point, minimum-stock, and maximum-stock parameters.

• Monitor inventory levels and identify potential stockouts, overstocks, excess inventory, and obsolete products.

• Develop replenishment strategies that balance availability, inventory investment, and operational efficiency.

• Coordinate with Procurement and suppliers to align purchasing plans with inventory requirements.

• Partner with Supply Chain and Logistics teams to optimize inbound flows, replenishment schedules, and distribution priorities.

• Collaborate with Merchandising and Category teams on assortment, product launches, promotions, markdowns, and lifecycle planning.

• Work closely with Finance to align inventory plans with budgets, working-capital targets, and financial forecasts.

• Support new product introductions and new-market launches through detailed inventory planning.

• Develop inventory plans for seasonal peaks, promotional campaigns, and major commercial events.

• Evaluate supplier lead times, minimum order quantities, case-pack requirements, and supply constraints.

• Identify opportunities to improve inventory turnover and reduce unnecessary inventory investment.

• Develop strategies for slow-moving, aging, excess, discontinued, and obsolete inventory.

• Recommend stock transfers, replenishment adjustments, markdowns, purchasing changes, or other corrective actions.

• Monitor inventory performance by SKU, category, location, channel, supplier, and market.

• Conduct regular inventory reviews and provide actionable recommendations to senior management.

• Build inventory scenarios to assess the impact of demand changes, supply disruptions, promotions, and commercial assumptions.

• Establish inventory planning processes, standards, controls, and governance frameworks.

• Maintain accurate inventory planning data, assumptions, parameters, and planning calendars.

• Develop dashboards and reporting tools covering inventory availability, stock health, working capital, and planning performance.

• Monitor inventory planning accuracy and investigate significant variances against approved plans.

• Identify process gaps and implement continuous-improvement initiatives across inventory planning operations.

• Leverage ERP, planning, forecasting, inventory-management, and analytics systems to improve planning effectiveness.

• Support automation, advanced analytics, and AI-assisted forecasting initiatives where appropriate.

• Establish clear escalation processes for material inventory risks and supply constraints.

• Coordinate cross-functional inventory planning meetings and performance reviews.

• Ensure inventory planning activities support customer service, commercial growth, and profitability objectives.

• Develop and maintain inventory policies, procedures, documentation, and operating standards.

• Provide regular management reporting on inventory risks, opportunities, performance, and improvement initiatives.

• Coach and develop inventory planning team members and promote a data-driven planning culture.

Key Performance Indicators

• Inventory forecast accuracy

• Inventory plan accuracy

• Inventory turnover

• Inventory days / weeks of supply

• Stock availability

• Stockout rate

• Excess inventory value

• Obsolete inventory value

• Slow-moving inventory

• Service-level achievement

• Replenishment accuracy

• Safety-stock effectiveness

• Sell-through performance

• Inventory-to-sales ratio

• Working-capital utilization

• Inventory carrying cost

• Purchase-plan adherence

• Supplier lead-time performance

• New-product inventory accuracy

• Seasonal inventory performance

• Plan-versus-actual inventory variance

• Inventory write-offs and markdown exposure

• Planning-cycle efficiency

• Inventory productivity by category and location

• Stakeholder satisfaction

Ideal Candidate

The successful candidate should have strong experience in

inventory planning, merchandise planning, demand planning, supply chain planning, replenishment, retail operations, or commercial planning

, preferably within retail, e-commerce, distribution, manufacturing, consumer products, or other inventory-intensive environments.

The candidate should demonstrate:

• Strong understanding of inventory planning, forecasting, replenishment, and stock optimization.

• Experience managing inventory across multiple products, locations, channels, or markets.

• Strong analytical and numerical capabilities with the ability to interpret complex inventory data.

• Experience with ERP, inventory-management, demand-planning, or supply-chain planning systems.

• Understanding of safety stock, reorder points, lead times, service levels, and inventory optimization principles.

• Strong commercial awareness and understanding of sales, margin, working capital, and inventory trade-offs.

• Experience working with Procurement, Merchandising, Supply Chain, Finance, Sales, and Operations teams.

• Strong problem-solving and scenario-planning capabilities.

• Ability to identify inventory risks early and develop practical corrective actions.

• Excellent project-management, organizational, and prioritization skills.

• Strong communication and stakeholder-management capabilities.

• Experience working with international or distributed teams.

• Strong proficiency in English; additional languages are advantageous.

• A continuous-improvement mindset with a strong focus on data accuracy, operational discipline, and measurable business outcomes.