Supply Chain Planner

A typical week often involves planning runs, S&OP preparation, cross-functional sync, and the steady cadence of exception management — running planning analyses in SAP, Oracle, Anaplan, or similar, working with sales and operations on consensus inputs, sitting in S&OP meetings, adjusting plans as conditions shift. You're often the operational owner of what supply chain commits to deliver. Forecast accuracy, inventory turns, and service levels anchor the operating view.

Friction tends to come from the competing pressures of demand, supply, and inventory — sales wants product available, operations wants level loading, and the planner finds the middle. Variance across employers is sharp: at major CPG and industrial firms planning runs in mature S&OP; at smaller firms or younger companies the planning happens in Excel with frequent firefighting.

It fits people who are analytically disciplined, commercially fluent, and steady under cross-functional pressure. APICS CPIM and CSCP credentials anchor advancement. The trade-off is the perpetual second-guessing when plans miss — every variance gets explained, even when the underlying business is genuinely volatile.