Business Process Expert – Demand Planning (Plan to Forecast)

Haleon · London

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Welcome to Haleon. We’re a purpose-driven, world-class consumer company putting everyday health in the hands of millions. In just three years since our launch, we’ve grown, evolved and are now entering an exciting new chapter – one filled with bold ambitions and enormous opportunity.

Our trusted portfolio of brands – including Sensodyne®, Panadol®, Advil®, Voltaren®, Theraflu®, Otrivin®, and Centrum® – lead in resilient and growing categories. What sets us apart is our unique blend of deep human understanding and trusted science.

Now it’s time to fully realise the full potential of our business and our people. We do this through our Win as One strategy. It puts our purpose – to deliver better everyday health with humanity – at the heart of everything we do. It unites us, inspires us, and challenges us to be better every day, driven by our agile, performance-focused culture.

The Enterprise Transformation Programme is a multi-year journey focused on transforming the Haleon business building an organisation that is wired for excellence to be able to deliver our ‘Win as One’ strategy and drive growth through continuous improvement. The programme aims to strengthen the heartbeat of our business enabling us to become more agile, efficient, and innovative and is enabled through SAP S/4HANA. The Business Process Expert partners with Business Process Owners and functional teams to design, govern, and continuously improve end-to-end business processes. 

Role purpose 

The Demand Planning BPE is responsible for shaping, measuring, and continuously improving Demand Planning process elements within the P2F (Plan-to-Forecast) value stream to deliver business value (service, growth, cost, inventory, and agility). The role reports into the P2F Business Process Owner (BPO) and partners with the Business GPO to manage the current process (ensuring proposed changes align to the intended future state), define the future end-to-end process vision and roadmap, ensure high-quality, well-controlled and user-centric processes are created, and drive the transition from current state to future state through disciplined execution, strong governance, and effective change delivery. 

A key focus of this role is embedding SAP/IBP capabilities relating to Demand Planning and ensuring effective integration of demand signals and consensus forecasts into S/4HANA and downstream planning and execution (e.g., supply planning, replenishment, and customer service). The BPE supports the BPO in maximising value delivery through rigorous performance management, adoption oversight, and continuous improvement activities—ensuring committed benefits are realised and sustained. 

Detailed responsibilities 

1) Process design, planning and coordination (Demand Planning in P2F) 

• Collaborate with the Business GPO, other BPE’s and relevant functions (e.g., Commercial, Marketing, Revenue Growth Management, Market/Sales teams, Customer Service, Finance, Planning CoE, Planning Hubs/Operating Units) to ensure Demand Planning process design meets requirements and strategic objectives across planning horizons (strategic, tactical, and operational). 

• Facilitate workshops to gather input, feedback, and socialise recommendations with functions/operating units to refine and finalise process design in partnership with the BPO, Business GPO and other BPEs. 

• Document “to be” processes; and support evaluation of “as is” processes identifying bottlenecks, inefficiencies, and duplication. 

• Define how Demand Planning connects end-to-end, including: 

• Translation of demand insights across horizons (e.g., long-range demand outlook → mid-term consensus forecast → short-term demand signals and adjustments). 

• Integration points between demand generation activities (e.g., promotions, launches, seasonality, pricing changes, portfolio actions) and the demand plan. 

• Interfaces between Demand Planning outputs (e.g., baseline forecast, uplift assumptions, consensus forecast, exceptions) and downstream processes (e.g., supply planning/IBP, allocation rules, customer service priorities). 

• Establish clear governance routines and decision rights for forecast shaping and approval (e.g., consensus processes, escalation paths, assumption management). 

• Drive decisions through relevant governance forums, ensuring decisions are communicated to stakeholders in a timely manner. 

• Align designs with programme timelines and milestones, ensuring coordination with other functional areas and interdependent programmes (including data, tooling, master data, and deployment waves). 

2) Readiness for delivery (including S/4HANA enablement) 

• Support the BPO and Functional Leaders in evaluating preparedness of their functional area for programme delivery, identifying gaps and proposing solutions. 

• Support the business change team in understanding people implications for the change and defining and delivering relevant interventions to create conditions for successful adoption. 

• Create appropriate documentation for new processes; partner with Training & Adoption to develop role-based training/upskilling for demand planners and cross-functional contributors to support adoption and benefit realisation. 

• Support process and business readiness for SAP-enabled Demand Planning, including: 

• Process alignment to system capabilities and required ways of working (e.g., forecasting cycles, exception-based planning, scenario management). 

• Definition of required data and governance controls to ensure stable forecasting outputs (e.g., product/location/customer hierarchies, lifecycle flags, historical data integrity, causal factor inputs such as promotions/events, forecast calendars, planning parameters). 

• Clear operational procedures for exceptions, forecast overrides, assumptions documentation, and escalation/feedback loops when demand changes materially. 

3) Supporting planning & execution of NPI (New Product Introduction) 

• Ensure Demand Planning processes support NPI planning end-to-end (from early demand shaping and first forecast through launch and stabilisation). 

• Partner with I2M BPO and cross-functional stakeholders (e.g., category/brand, R&D, Regulatory, Finance, Supply Planning, Customer Service) to embed NPI governance into planning, including: 

• Demand assumptions, scenario planning, and launch phasing (e.g., distribution ramp, cannibalisation, promotional activation). 

• Alignment of demand plans to supply readiness milestones and risk mitigation (e.g., upside/downside scenarios, constraint-aware demand shaping where required). 

• Ensure robust lifecycle controls for phase-in/phase-out demand, including forecast handover rules (new → mature), substitution/cannibalisation logic, and demand run-down aligned to governance. 

4) Managing transition phases 

• Partner with the Business Continuity Manager to establish and manage interim operating states to support business continuity during the change (including system/process cutovers). 

• Collaborate with operational teams to design and implement interim processes, ensuring minimal disruption to existing operations and forecasting cadence. 

• Ensure plans are in place to transition from interim states to permanent processes in a sustainable way (including hypercare, stabilisation criteria, and handover to BAU ownership). 

5) Performance management and continuous improvement 

• Support the BPO in defining, tracking and improving Demand Planning performance, including measures that connect forecast quality to business outcomes (e.g., forecast accuracy/bias, service, inventory health, obsolescence risk, forecast stability, exception volumes and resolution time). 

• Use data-driven insights to identify root causes of demand forecast gaps (e.g., poor event inputs, incorrect hierarchies, lifecycle misclassification, insufficient causal modelling, override behaviours) and drive sustainable improvements. 

• In partnership with the Business GPO, ensure continuous improvement activities are prioritised against business value and embedded into standard routines. 

6) Stakeholder engagement 

• Foster effective relationships with stakeholders across Commercial, Finance, and Supply Chain, ensuring alignment and collaboration. 

• Communicate effectively, adapting messaging for different audiences to ensure clarity and engagement in programme objectives. 

• Champion the process vision, ensuring priorities are reflected in programme decision-making and feedback loops are effective. 

Experience and key competencies 

• Experience working in complex, global organisations, ideally within Consumer Health or FMCG sectors. 

• Strong analytical skills; ability to analyse demand planning workflows, understand drivers of demand variability, and identify inefficiencies and controls needed for reliable forecasting. 

• Strong understanding of Demand Planning concepts across planning horizons (strategic to operational), including baseline forecasting, event/promo modelling, lifecycle forecasting, and consensus processes. 

• Experience enabling ERP / planning-tool-based forecasting and planning ways of working; strong preference for SAP S/4HANA and SAP IBP exposure; ability to translate business requirements into system-enabled process design and controls. 

• Understanding of how demand plans, scenarios, and assumptions should integrate into downstream planning to drive executable and value-optimised plans. 

• Experience supporting NPI demand planning and launch execution, including lifecycle management through maturity to phase-out. 

• Knowledge of process modelling software, data analysis tools, and familiarity with automation technologies is beneficial. 

• Project management skills: ability to plan, manage, and execute process improvement initiatives. 

• Inspiring and motivating — strong leader who can energise teams toward shared goals. 

• Building strong relationships — skilled at developing collaborative connections across functions. 

• Making informed decisions — evaluates challenges from multiple perspectives, analyses outcomes, takes calculated risks, and drives timely decisions. 

• Navigating and driving change — applies structured change management strategies, guides teams through uncertainty, and maintains operational stability and continuity throughout transformation. 

 Job Posting End Date

Equal Opportunities

Haleon are committed to mobilising our purpose in a way that represents the diverse consumers and communities who rely on our brands every day. It guides us in creating an inclusive culture, where different backgrounds and views are valued and respected – all in support of understanding and best serving the needs of our consumers and unleashing the full potential of our people. It’s important to us that Haleon is a place where all our employees feel they truly belong.

During the application process, we may ask you to share some personal information, which is entirely voluntary. This information ensures we meet certain regulatory and reporting obligations and supports the development, refinement, and execution of our inclusion and belonging programmes that are open to all Haleon employees. 

The personal information you provide will be kept confidential, used only for legitimate business purposes, and will never be used in making any employment decisions, including hiring decisions.

Adjustment or Accommodations Request

If you require a reasonable adjustment or accommodation or other assistance to apply for a job at Haleon at any stage of the application process, please let your recruiter know by providing them with a description of specific adjustments you are requesting. We’ll provide all reasonable adjustments to support you throughout the recruitment process and treat all information you provide us in confidence. 

Note to candidates

The Haleon recruitment team will contact you using a Haleon email account (@haleon.com). If you are not sure whether the email you received is from Haleon, please get in touch.

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