Sr Import Demand Planner

Who is Grand & Toy?

For over 140 years, Grand & Toy has partnered with customers to change the way Canadian businesses work and help them compete. And what we do for others, we do for ourselves. We’re a passionate team of diverse individuals who are focused on coming together to bring positive transformation to our customers and vendor partners by setting new standards for ourselves and our teams.  We embrace transformation and innovate for our customers and partners, and our employees as well.  At Grand & Toy, you can be part of the change by learning and growing along with the business.

About the role

As Sr. Import Demand Planner, you will be responsible for developing, executing and communicating inventory buys and forecasts that support the merchandising, marketing and financial objectives and strategies of a division/category. This will involve driving financial results through service and quality inventory management that maximizes sales, while improving inventory and bottom-line profitability and supporting inventory turn goals.

You will support the organization by maintaining the repository for shipping and compliance documentation by being responsible for the Nexus & CBSA/CARM portals (BAM level responsibilities expected), setting up HS codes and port information. This role manages broker and freight forwarder relationships, including cost negotiation and ensuring container space availability as well as reviewing and advising on components of landed costs directly affecting sell margins. The Import Planner will also create B2/B3 corrections, commercial documents & CUSMA certificates when required as well. In addition, the Import Planner is the initial point of contact for any CBSA requests for product information and coordinates investigations and audits. You will also develop projections and commitments for our suppliers, analyzing historical data, productivity, and current trends to identify risk and opportunities while creating action steps and recommendations to ensure delivery of plan and maintain revised forecasts in the system tools.

You will collaborate internally and externally, and act as mentor, trainer, and coach to planners on day-to-day basis. The Sr. Planner manages the more complex business categories that require more business experience.

What will I do?

• Develop, execute and communicate inventory buys and forecasts that support the merchandising, marketing and financial objectives and strategies of a division/category including long-range forecasting of offshore & private label replacement SKUs. The daily duties also include a larger portion of manually created purchase orders for offshore product.
• Drive financial results through service and quality inventory management across a variety of categories and product lines that maximize sales, inventory and bottom-line profitability resulting in return on investment and inventory turn goals
  • Actively evaluate business results, create action steps and recommendations to ensure delivery of plan and maintain revised forecasts in system tools including creating, monitoring and actioning plans to achieve purchase gates.
• Initiate and maintain regular communication with Suppliers, including offshore vendors & procurement teams, that will foster collaboration and alignment on forecast and order quantities ensuring delivery accuracy and on-time delivery. Create and foster working processes to align with Veyer Compliance Department processes.
• Take proactive measures in high risk and aged inventory

• Mentor, Train and Coach Planners and specialist on day-to-day responsibilities around the Demand Planner role including strategic advisory, collaboration and analytics of offshore sourced product
• Lead/participate in business process improvement initiatives to refine existing processes, tools and technology with the overall goals of driving efficiencies and increasing delivery performance.
• Review and advise on approvals of GST, brokerage, and freight invoices & statements. Source freight quotes, as required, and create commercial documents & CUSMA documentation for other departments
• Maintain valid compliance information & documents in G&T databases and coordinate any requests for information, which may include audits, from CBSA or Veyer/Office Depot Compliance Department.

What qualifications do I need?

• Bachelor’s degree in supply chain management, statistics or related field or relevant experience
• 5-7 years of experience in Inventory Management in a high volume, multi-location distribution environment or equivalent Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP) experience.
• SCMP desirable.
• Experience in statistical-based forecasting and JIT inventory management processes, understanding of forecasting packages such as JDA, Logility or Demand Solutions is a plus (DSX).
• Proficiency in MS Office, specifically MS Excel, and database applications.
• Strong analytical and problem solving skills
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills with a customer focus
• Excellent attention to detail
• Bilingualism in English and French is an asset

What does Grand & Toy offer?

Grand & Toy offers a competitive salary and benefits package based on education and experience, along with other perks such as our associate/corporate discounts and reward programs for management positions. We proudly provide comprehensive training for all new associates.

We celebrate employment equity and diversity. We are committed to providing accommodations for persons with disabilities. If you require accommodation, we will work with you to meet your needs.