Customer Allocations Lead

Overview

Job Title: Customer Allocations Lead

Location: Hershey, PA 17033 (Hybrid)

Duration: 9-12 Months

Role Summary

The Customer Allocations Lead owns the end-to-end allocation process when customer demand exceeds available supply. This role serves as the central point of coordination across Customer Supply Chain, Sales, IDP/Customer Planning, and senior leadership, ensuring limited inventory is allocated in a disciplined, transparent, and commercially sound manner.

The role balances analytical rigor, operational execution, and stakeholder decision-making, and is accountable for ensuring allocations protect strategic customers while minimizing downstream operational risk and organizational friction.

• Allocation Governance & Decision Support
• Act as the designated owner for allocation execution per established RACI and governing principles.
• Evaluate allocation requests initiated by Sales or Customer Supply Chain when demand exceeds supply
• Develop data-backed allocation recommendations for leadership decision (IDP leadership, CSC leadership, or escalation to USLT when required)
• Ensure allocations are used sparingly and intentionally, consistent with leadership guidance that allocations should be exception-based, not routine.

• Analytical Assessment & Scenario Modeling
• Analyze demand signals, customer forecasts, inventory positions, production constraints, and distribution center availability to inform allocation decisions
• Quantify risks including:
• Customer distribution loss
• Promotional fill shortfalls
• In-stock deterioration
• Downstream case-fill impacts
• Build and maintain allocation workbooks and scenarios used for decision-making and execution

• Execution & System Enablement
• Oversee accurate and timely entry of allocations into S/4 and supporting systems, partnering closely with Order Management and Customer Service.
• Ensure allocation changes, extensions, and customer-specific adjustments are correctly reflected and communicated.
• Manage allocation timelines (start, extensions, end dates) to align with production ramps, resets, and promotional windows.

• Cross-Functional Partnership
• Serve as the connective tissue between:
• Sales teams advocating for customer needs
• Customer Supply Chain managing physical supply constraints
• IDP/Customer Planning providing forecast and demand context
• Act as a neutral, data-driven integrator when competing customer priorities arise.
• Support leadership forums (CDAs, deep dives, pre-reads) by supplying clear allocation insights and implications

• Process Improvement & Future State Design
• Identify root causes driving allocation volume (forecast accuracy, demand spikes, capacity constraints) and partner with teams to reduce future need for allocations.
• Contribute to longer-term solutions such as process simplification, automation opportunities, and roadmap alignment with broader Customer Data Integration initiatives.
• Support training and enablement on allocation processes, templates, and best practices.

• Key Skills & Capabilities
• Strong analytical and financial acumen (comfort with demand, supply, and scenario tradeoffs)
• Ability to operate calmly under pressure with senior stakeholders and urgent customer needs
• Deep understanding of customer prioritization, supply chain flows, and execution constraints
• Highly organized with strong attention to detail across fast-moving, high-impact decisions
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, especially in escalation scenarios

• Top Three Technical
  
  Skills:
  
  
• Excel fundamentals (pivot, etc)
• Quick learning of new systems

• Pre-Screening Questions:
• Excel fundamentals pre-screening
• Experience on pulling data and analyzing to make a recommendation

• Must Haves (i.e., years of experience?)
• 5 Years of experience in the industry

• Software Skills and Purpose (if applicable):
• Excel fundamentals