Eli D Email & Phone Number

Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States

Grand Rapids Metropolitan Area

Greater Grand Rapids, Michigan Area

Sassy Brand

Greater Grand Rapids, Michigan Area

Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul Area

•Lead analyst for JM’s second largest account – Conair Hair Appliances and Scales – managing over $95 million in annual sales.•Own all forecasting components of the business. Including, in collaboration with Conair and Target, their inventory production and demand forecasts. Additionally, participate in Target’s Joint Business Planning Process to build an annual sales and profitability plan.•Conduct comprehensive promotional analyses and created an Events Analysis Tracker which allows Conair to compare varying events’ performances across time. This has helped Conair make promotional decisions which yield higher ROI and sales. •Oversaw a key Supply Chain transition, converting Domestic and Direct Import items to their optimal distribution channel. This has led to a $1 million in unproductive inventory savings and over $100 thousand in increased margin.•Responsible for Vendor Income collections and forecasting. Via detailed process management was recognized by Conair’s VP of Sales for nearly eliminating all post audit expense. •Through consistent collaboration with Target and high forecast accuracy reduced Clearance Markdowns by 16.5% year over year, driving savings of $200 thousand.

•Developed business critical reporting to track company, SKU, and kiosk sales performance as well as to manage inventory across the company’s three market s of operation (LA, San Antonio, and Houston). •Supported internal buyers on key category management decisions, including assortment selection, pricing, gross margin targets, promotions, and forecasting.•Owned the Merchandise Planogram Process from beginning to end. Generated a weekly planogram and partnered closely with Operations to ensure accurate and timely execution of planogram changes each week. •Setup a process with Account Payable for consistent and reliable tracking of invoice payments. Prior to process adoption payments were delayed and often missed resulting in the holdback of inventory supply.•Managed the team’s relationship with Software Development to enhance and build our internal reporting systems.•Helped train and lead our team’s contractor.

•Worked with key internal partners from each of Best Buy’s core retail groups to ensure accurate SKU setup for returns, resulting in annual savings of $2.5 million. The management of routing customer returns requires an in-depth knowledge of numerous routing attributes and an understanding of retail and secondary markets return processes. •Advised internal partners on best methods and practices for handling product returns. Presented Best Buy’s new retail channel (BBY Marketplace) with recommendations on how to manage returns and overcome existing system limitation. •Provided detailed financial analysis and operational support on a $5 million business decision to transition the Apple iPad warranty program to a Rapid Exchange model. •Discovered a flaw in Best Buy’s Returns and Exchange reporting which was inflating the company’s R&E rate by 1.29%. Proved out findings and pushed for a resolution to correct the company’s R&E rate.

•Presented nine live training sessions on our Headquarter Planning Process to over 500 attendees companywide, receiving recognition from senior leadership and very high attendee ratings (average score 4.2 of 5).•Managed Target’s quarterly incentive accrual ensuring proper SOX compliant accrual practices. Developed clear management reporting to provide visibility of our accrual forecast and to bring management understanding given the accrual’s complexities.•Partnered with internal team to oversee and rollout SAP Planning and Consolidation as our new planning and forecasting tool. Successfully executed the creation of a 2011 companywide full year budget utilizing the new SAP tool.•Owned two internal Actual Results Review pages (Merchandising and Other Expense). Managed the forecast and actuals analysis for each page. Partnered with internal clients to ensure accurate forecasting and provide support to several hundred clients across the company on understanding and managing their respective budgets.•Led team to determine a proper expense forecasting and review process for Target Canada related expenses.

•Led the transition of Bunzl’s $8 million SuperTarget packaging business to Target’s internal supply chain. Developed and oversaw a ten month forward looking timeline and forecast to ensure smooth changeover of each Bunzl item. As a result, savings of $1.71 million over two years were realized. •Managed and maintained Central Sourcing Operations’ item specifications Access database. Worked with a database developer to ensure business critical updates were completed necessary for an $8.5 million inventory transition. Created and utilized a detailed PowerPoint deck to hold training sessions for database users. •Directed the completion of Central Sourcing Operations’ newly developed quarterly review process of over three thousand inventoried items. Resulted in the identification of $268,664 worth of obsolete stock. •Mentored new analyst and provided specific training on core areas and tools as well as day-to-day issue resolution.

•Partnered with SuperTarget Sourcing Specialist to develop a process for tracking item and vendor transitions and their respective costs and savings. Success of the new process resulted in quarterly statuses with Perishables’ VP. •Claimed responsibility of bid sheet compilations and analyses for eSourcing events yielding savings of $1.07 million over two years. •Developed an Excel inventory-tracking tool for a key distributor of SuperTarget packaging product – Bunzl. As a result, Bunzl’s fill rate rose from 96.5% to 98% over one year and obsolescence costs were dramatically reduced.•Created an Excel template to standardize and track all of Central Sourcing Operations’ distributions to stores, ensuring that no distribution was missed or delayed.•Led the on boarding, integration, and management of a new category (Furniture Assembly) to Central Sourcing Operations representing an annual spend of $4 million.