Sr Merch Corporate Planning Analyst

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Our Merchandise Planning and Allocation (MP&A) teams are the driving forces behind making the organization’s product visions available to our consumers through calculated and strategic measures. Your involvement in sales and margin forecasts, promotional performance analysis, inventory management, and vendor relationships will play a critical role in obtaining goals while maintaining Pet Smart’s reputation in the market as a trusted partner to pet parents.

Collaborative Work Environment:
At Pet Smart, teamwork and connection are core to how we thrive. This role is based at our Phoenix Home Office, with an expectation of working a minimum of four days in the office each week. In a standard work week, associates may work up to one remote “flex day” (with leader approval). Our hybrid approach is designed to foster strong collaboration while also supporting flexibility and individual success.

The Senior Corporate Merchandise Planner is responsible for developing data‑driven analysis around merchandise performance, corporate initiative forecasting and measurement, competitive and market growth/changes, along with extensive ad‑hoc modeling and forecasting and setting the analytical foundation for financial plans and targets. This position requires an exceptional analytical skill set along with business acumen to effectively analyze the business and make impactful recommendations.

• Collaborate with teams across the enterprise including Merch Planning & Allocation (MP&A), Buying, Pricing, Space Planning, Finance, Supply Chain, Store Operations, Digital, Customer Experience, Marketing, and more to measure performance of initiatives and make recommendations.
• Execute extensive data mining and complex analyses to consolidate and clearly communicate analytical findings and recommendations across various levels of the organization.
• Develop and maintain standardized reporting to provide visibility and understanding of performance to equip merchandising teams to make more informed business decisions.
• In‑depth understanding of retail KPIs to be able to identify trends, measure performance, and gauge whether strategies are working across sales, margin, customer, digital channels, marketing, promotion, pricing, space productivity, and inventory.
• Develop and lead trainings for the Merchandise Financial Planners on best practices for building a rolling merchandise forecast and build the tools and resources to support their work including guidance on inputting company‑wide initiatives to ensure consistency.
• Act as the business systems administrator for the Blue Yonder Enterprise Planning (EP) software. The EP Admin functions as the subject matter expert for the software, bridging the gap between technical infrastructure and business user needs. This role will also manage licensing and access, develop user guides and training materials, execute the forecast and plan tasks, and own requirements analysis and user acceptance testing for upgrades and system changes.

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Finance, Data Science, Mathematics, or related field plus 2+ years of work experience; or 5+ years of equivalent combination of education and experience and/or training
• Retail industry experience preferred
• Self‑directed, independent thinker with exceptional analytical skills and high attention to detail
• Understanding of retail metrics and knowledge of merchandise planning practices preferred
• Must be proficient in using the Microsoft Office Suite including intermediate/expert level Excel and PowerPoint skills
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, both written and verbal, to partner effectively across departments and present recommendations and influence business decisions at various levels
• Blue Yonder Enterprise Planning (EP) experience preferred
• Experience with Strategy (formerly Micro Strategy), Snowflake, Power
  
  BI a plus
• Familiarity with SQL a plus

• This role requires collaboration, teamwork, and…