Manager, Supply Chain Planning

What Supply Chain Planning contributes to Cardinal Health

Supply Chain Planning is responsible for ensuring the right quantity of products arrive in the right place, at the right time and cost. This job family is accountable for the design and execution of demand planning, supply planning, deployment planning, inventory planning, collaborative planning, and the design and implementation of the supply chain network. This role works cross functionally with marketing, finance, sales, customers, and suppliers to align forecast and close gaps as needed.

Supply Chain Planning is responsible for driving improvements in forecast accuracy and bias.

As the Planning Manager you will collaborate with numerous cross‑functional stakeholders including sales, key account, purchasing, finance, operations, sourcing and more to build and deliver a consensus demand plan that considers historical trends, seasonality, promotional activities, sales goals, and product transition plans, while balancing our financial targets. As we continuously have new technology launches, this role is also responsible for supporting new forecasting tools/reporting/dashboard development and scalable processes to drive cross‑functional collaboration, improve forecast accuracy, and support long‑term sales strategies.

The planning manager will own diving deep into data, deriving insights among ambiguity, and presenting findings that influence business critical decisions.

• Hire, train, coach and develop a team of Supply Chain Planning Advisors.
• Leverage demand planning system, historical sales trends, and leading signals, creating short‑ and long‑term demand forecast plans, and lead cross‑functional meetings to drive demand consensus.
• Review and evaluate forecast results for different categories; validate demand inputs, deep dive root causes of forecast errors; leading and partnering with data engineering/analytics team to improve forecast models.
• Work cross‑functionally with different business partners to understand business growth strategy, market trend, customer demand trend changes, and reconcile significant forecast variances, refine forecasts to support customer demand and business growth.
• Lead seasonal planning cross pharmaceutical segmentation.
• Provide support with data analytics, root cause analysis, and problem resolution of inventory concerns or issues.
• Responsible for identifying and mitigating future service level disruptions.
• Be a leader in driving process improvements and automation for demand planning tools to reduce manual data aggregation and increase visibility to the forecast analysis.
• Communicate ideas concisely to a wide variety of stakeholders for purposes ranging from informative to financial approval from executives.
• Ad‑hoc analytics related to inventory management MBOs.

• Bachelor's in supply chain management, industrial engineering, or equivalent work experience, preferred
• Master's degree in Supply Chain or related field, preferred
• 5+ years of experience in Demand/Supply Planning, preferred
• 5+ years of experience working in data driven environment, preferred
• 3+ years of management experience, preferred
• Proficient in Microsoft Excel, SQL/Tableau a plus
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills
• Experience building/maintaining statistical forecast models preferred
• APICS certifications and Kinaxis Planning system experience preferred
• Experience in S&OP (Sales & Operations Planning) a plus
• Must be a self‑starter with strong strategic influence

• Manages department operations and supervises professional employees, front line supervisors and/or business support staff.
• Participates in the development of policies and procedures to achieve specific goals.
• Ensures employees operate within guidelines.
• Decisions have a short term impact on work processes, outcomes and customers.
• Interacts with subordinates, peers, customers, and suppliers at various management levels; may interact with senior management.
• Interactions normally involve resolution of issues related to operations and/or projects.
• Gains consensus from various parties involved.