Assistant Planning Manager - Retail Planning

Manager supports commercial decision-making by translating sales trends, inventory movements, margin expectations, and market opportunities into practical financial and merchandise plans. Working across multiple markets, business units, stores, and channels, the role helps balance customer demand with stock investment while ensuring sales, cash margin, markdown, and closing inventory remain aligned with agreed business objectives.

The position acts as a key planning link between Merchandising, Buying, Allocation, Retail, Finance, and Supply Chain teams. Strong forecasting and analytical discipline are essential because planning decisions directly influence product availability, sell-through, working capital, profitability, and seasonal trading performance.

Key Responsibilities

* Build annual business plans across markets and business units using historical performance, commercial priorities, future initiatives, and expected demand.
* Deliver weekly WSSI planning for Clothing and Home, Food, and total business performance.
* Develop seasonal, monthly, and weekly sales forecasts by market, store, category, and sales channel.
* Produce financial projections covering sales, gross profit, gross margin, markdown cost, inventory, and closing stock.
* Monitor actual performance against approved plans and highlight material risks, gaps, and emerging opportunities.
* Evaluate prior-year missed sales and market opportunities to strengthen future planning assumptions.
* Support Business Unit sales planning by season, including new product strategies and anticipated sales opportunities.
* Review performance throughout the trading cycle and recommend corrective actions where results differ from plan.
* Manage markdown planning, promotional phasing, and price optimization activities in partnership with Merchandising.
* Track sell-through, stock aging, inventory exposure, and markdown effectiveness to identify timely clearance actions.
* Control markdown expenditure against approved budgets while protecting gross margin and inventory recovery.
* Monitor sale-line performance to ensure expected sell-through levels are achieved.
* Help prevent products from being sold below cost by maintaining appropriate pricing and markdown controls.
* Prepare weekly and monthly trading reports covering sales, margin, stock, markdown, and key performance indicators.
* Analyze category, product, market, and store-level performance to support commercial and strategic decisions.
* Provide insight-based recommendations to improve sales productivity, margin achievement, and stock efficiency.
* Support Finance teams with forecast validation and periodic financial submissions.
* Coordinate with Buying and Merchandising teams on weekly Business Unit and department-level planning.
* Maintain accurate product hierarchies, planning assumptions, and commercial data within reporting systems.
* Create planning templates, management dashboards, presentations, and review materials for business discussions.

Ideal Profile

The preferred candidate holds a Bachelor\'s degree in Business, Finance, Retail Management, or a related discipline and brings 3-5 years of relevant experience in merchandise planning, retail financial planning, or commercial analysis.

Experience within fashion, food, department store, or multi-category retail environments is particularly valuable. Candidates should understand seasonal trading cycles, inventory investment, gross margin, markdown management, stock aging, sell-through, and sales forecasting.

Advanced Excel capability is essential, together with confidence working with large commercial datasets and management reporting. Practical exposure to systems such as JDA, SAP, Power BI, Tableau, or comparable retail planning and business intelligence platforms will strengthen suitability.

Success in this position also requires strong numerical judgment, commercial awareness, structured problem-solving, and the ability to communicate findings clearly to Finance, Buying, Merchandising, Supply Chain, and Retail stakeholders.

Skills Set

* Merchandise planning
* Retail financial planning
* Sales forecasting
* WSSI planning
* Inventory planning
* Stock optimization
* Gross margin analysis
* Gross profit forecasting
* Markdown management
* Price optimization
* Sell-through analysis
* Aging stock analysis
* Seasonal planning
* Business unit planning
* Store performance analysis
* Category performance analysis
* Omnichannel planning
* E-Commerce forecasting
* Retail KPI reporting
* Advanced Microsoft Excel
* Power BI
* Tableau
* SAP
* JDA planning systems
* Commercial analytics
* Financial projections
* Dashboard development
* Product hierarchy management
* Trade reporting
* Cross-functional planning

Why Join Us

This role provides broad exposure to retail planning across physical stores, E-Commerce, and omnichannel operations within a large regional business. The combination of merchandise forecasting, financial planning, markdown strategy, and inventory optimization offers a strong platform for professionals aiming to progress into senior planning and commercial management positions.

Al-Futtaim Retail operates across established international brands and multiple product categories, creating opportunities to develop planning expertise in complex and high-volume retail environments. The position also offers meaningful collaboration with Buying, Merchandising, Finance, Retail, Allocation, and Supply Chain teams while contributing directly to sales growth, margin protection, and efficient stock investment.

About the Company

Al-Futtaim is a Dubai-headquartered regional group with operations across automotive, financial services, real estate, retail, and healthcare. Its Retail division manages partnerships with major international brands across the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, operating extensive store networks and growing digital and omnichannel retail platforms.