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Director of Planning, Production & Distribution
Volkswagen Group of America
Herndon, VA, United States
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Description
VW. Two letters. Endless opportunities. A bright future.
The Volkswagen Group is one of the world's largest producers of passenger cars and Europe's largest automaker and is on the road to number one. Come join our team and you could be part of that ride. For our employees, Volkswagen stands for more than just efficient and sustainable products - it’s an expression of who they are and how they move through life. Become a part of the Volkswagen of America experience and work with people who are passionate, innovative, enthusiastic, and high performing team players. Everyone deserves a better car and everyone deserves a better company - it’s a Volkswagen thing.
Role Summary:
The role consists of four main areas of responsibility: 1) leading and managing a team of professional individuals to effectively and reliably execute sales planning and related operational activities including objective setting, sales analysis and reporting, market assessment, and carline volume and heavy item forecasting; 2) leading and managing a team of professional individuals to effectively and reliably execute production planning and vehicle order operational activities including stock assessment, production requests, restrictions management, dealer and Region order generation, factory order submissions, launch planning and tracking, and VWAG / Factory relations; 3) leading and managing a team of professional individuals to effectively and reliably execute all vehicle distribution activities including internal and dealer-facing allocation, inventory management, supply chain management, and other distribution-related functions in order to maintain operational and inventory excellence; 4) continuously evaluating current business practices and driving process and technology improvement and transformation in the areas of sales intelligence, planning, vehicle order, distribution, and operations. Performing market analysis and developing business strategy and both short and long term plans related to sales growth, product portfolio and product offering, regulatory compliance, and profitability improvement.
Role Responsibilities:
• Lead a team of planning managers and vehicle order specialists in the monthly MPL planning process to define current and next year monthly sales targets by carline and channel based on market analysis, sales trends, supply, restrictions, and share growth objectives; review plan with executive leadership and VWAG for consensus and approval;
• Lead the short-term sales planning and inventory analysis process to determine natural vehicle demand, analyze gaps against objectives, identify inventory disparities, and develop strategic and tactical action plans in conjunction with Regions & corporate functions to remedy the sales constraints and drive inventory improvements, supporting the Incentives team.
• Provide direction and feedback to sales planning team on monthly retail objective setting process, including assessment of natural demand, gap analysis against prior objectives, and inventory pressures; develop strategic and tactical action plans in conjunction with Regions & corporate functions to improve sales and inventory issues
• Provide direction and feedback to sales planning team on monthly wholesale objective setting process, including shipment forecast assessment, holdback (ex. new dealers) determination by channel, products with new model year vehicle release (if applicable), and coordination with finance for profitability assessment and approval
• Lead a vehicle order manager and team of vehicle order specialists to analyze supply issues at a national and regional level, recommend appropriate adjustments to factory production and mix, manage restrictions, close weekly programs with minimal production losses, and ensure vehicle order team has rationale required for negotiation with VWAG and factories as appropriate
• Lead the launch planning process for Sales Operations, coordinating input from sales planning, vehicle order, incentives, and fleet management to derive market introduction volumes, sales targets, and wholesale forecasts; adapt planning as required based on close tracking of factory production ramp-up, logistics, seasonality, and any other concurrent launch and marketing activities
• Continuously improve the fairness, equitability, and satisfaction of the objective setting and forecasting processes with Regions through ongoing sales & supply analysis, simulation of innovative improvement actions, benchmarking, data-driven recommendations, and business process and systems implementation
• Actively engage with the incentives team and marketing on monthly or as needed, more frequent basis to communicate sales plans, supply challenges, and stock assessments and ensure programs are in place to achieve current month and two year plan objectives, including ongoing product and launch of new products
• Act as the primary lead in Sales Operations to develop and drive product strategy regarding volumes, pricing, positioning, mix, and offering structure / complexity that complement the short and long-term sales objectives. Create strong arguments for or against the proposed actions and develop compelling business cases as needed. In conjunction with Regions and Product, develop appropriate launch and runout plans to effectively manage model transitions while achieving sales objectives and Brand growth. Ensure all Sales Operations functions are supportive of the recommendations, interface and negotiate with other areas of the business, and influence the leadership team accordingly.
• Responsible for development and implementation of distribution and inventory allocation policies and procedures.
• Define, create, and communicate wholesale plan to support retail success and financial targets
• Monitor the volume and mix performance relative to budget with collaboration from the Finance, Product, and Incentive teams
• Manage operational budget for National distributions tasks and deliverables
• Identify opportunities to optimize the supply chain and improve distribution and logistics efficiencies
• Make strategic and tactical decisions regarding inventory allocation with RSDMs in partnership with IT&S to successfully fulfill dealer and customer demand
• Effectively facilitate agreement and alignment among relevant stakeholders across the supply chain through change management and negotiation skills
• Update executive management on a regular basis regarding national distribution supply chain operations
• Conduct comprehensive and ongoing analyses of allocation, product mix, and dispersion of inventory across the entire dealer network in the United States including performance metrics (stock measures, turn rates, speed of sale, etc.)
• Manage the sales communication process to VWAG, corporate departments, and Regions. Ensure consistent and accessible sales data is available with real-time actual performance and forecasting mechanisms are in place to optimize accountability in objectives. Manage and ensure completion of VWAG requests related to sales data and analysis.
• Optimize future sales through solid analysis of internal sales data and external market data. Initiate & drive short-term tactical product actions to the market such as special editions, value editions, product specification, complexity, & pricing actions, and in collaboration with Product create business cases which generate an acceptable return on investment. Develop strategic ‘boost’ plans to accelerate Brand market share growth and conduct critical analyses of sales issues, coordinating with Finance, Marketing, Product, and VWAG functions for sales, industry, competitive, and financial analyses and recommendations.
• In conjunction with Product and Finance, directly manage and perform the annual Planning Round process relating to ten-year volume and 5-year financial planning encompassing Product portfolio, cycle plan, volumes, shares, incentives, and financials and secure plan approvals from leadership team and VWAG. Work with multiple stakeholders to ensure all objectives are achieved within a fixed timeline.
• Ensure implementation and continuous improvement of the Essbase Sales Planning System for production, wholesale, retail, and inventory tracking, analysis, and forecasting, including expanded capabilities in sales channel planning, regional objectives, and mix forecasting for financial analysis; leverage the Essbase platform for the Planning Round process and monthly six-digit mix forecasting for Finance
• Conduct ongoing regulatory compliance assessments with EEO, Product, and Finance including sales and production forecasting and develop countermeasures as needed, including PZEV, GHG, and FMVSS; recommend countermeasure plans as appropriate to leadership and monitor / track execution against plan to ensure compliance.
• Ensure business support in the area of Order Management for the OMD 2.0 initiative, including requirements definition, fit-gap analysis, and development and implementation of future solution
• Ensure cross-collaboration between the Sales Planning, Vehicle Ordering, New Vehicle Incentives, Regional Sales, Vehicle Logistics, Marketing, Product, Product Accessories, Dealer Network, IT&S, Finance, Legal, Factory teams to successfully allocate, distribute, launch and sell all new and existing Volkswagen products
Qualifications
Years of Experience:
• Minimum of 10 years of relevant experience
Education-Required:
• Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering or related technical / science field
• Master of Business Administration
Education-Desired:
• Master of Science in Engineering or related technical field
Skills:
• Strong written and verbal communication skills
• Conceptual thinking skills
• Ability to establish strong interpersonal relationships across the entire organization
• Ability to negotiate and communicate with all levels of management within the global organization
• Excellent analytical skills, with ability to assess complex problems, structure approaches, and develop fact-based recommendations
• Change agent, able to influence disparate thinking towards a common goal
• High proficiency in Excel and analytics tools to conduct analyses, simulate trends, and develop outcomes
• Ability to fully structure complex presentations in PowerPoint and directly execute creation of slides, charts, and tables
Specialized Skills-Required:
• 10+ years business experience in automotive engineering, business consulting, project management, supply chain management, and understanding of automotive industry dynamics and economic indicators
• Understanding of field sales and retail dealer operations
• Previous leadership experience
• Automotive experience in engineering or product development environment
• Strategic management consulting experience, preferably some with automotive clients
• Deep business modeling, forecasting, mathematical, and statistical analysis skills across sales operational and financial disciplines
• Comprehensive experience in taking on multiple new business responsibilities / challenges concurrently, proactively finding and engaging with subject matter experts to rapidly gain clear understanding, developing detailed workplans and building ad hoc teams, and managing and executing plans and solutions
• Provide thought leadership, best practices, and experience as how to evolve current business practices
• Business process assessment and improvement / redesign and change management / stakeholder management experience
• Prior management / leadership experience with direct employee reports and contractor management
• Demonstrated skills of leading in a global business environment, successfully interacting / managing both internal (organization) and external (vendor) teams with differing, multi-national cultures and working styles
Specialized Skills-Desired:
• 5 years Dealer facing contact experience
• Operations & Logistics experience
• Experience in Enterprise Business Intelligence, Planning & Consolidation Software [such as Business Objects or Essbase]
• Product Launch experience
• Market Research experience
Work Flexibility:
• Moderate business travel across all sales regions, factories and port facilities
• Extended work schedule and hours will apply depending on operational business demands
We are proud to be an EEO employer M/F/D/V. We maintain a drug-free workplace and perform pre-employment substance abuse testing.