Roxanne Patel Email and Phone Number

Development of a comprehensive strategy and plan to drive growth across the department in sales, brands, suppliers, and new product listings. Key to this was to also promote innovation in line with market trends and consumer demand. This required constant monitoring of a significant variety of primary and secondary information sources as well as ongoing analysis into broader macro-environments. This was essential to ensure that all KPIs and financials were aligned and achieved. Supplier relationship management was imperative, and this also comprised the negotiation of good prices and improvement of trading terms. From a marketing perspective, I worked closely with suppliers and the marketing team to develop promotional programs and manage site merchandising for the department. In addition, I supported the operations team in delivering a world-class customer experience – monitored department returns, supported the customer service team on product queries and resolved any customer complaints. I worked with a variety of internal customers such as the analysts in managing stock and availability (including replenishment orders, stock cover), the finance and legal teams, supply chain management, catalogue listing teams and Business Intelligence. Finally, and most importantly, a key focus was on customer experience within the department (ensuring products were delivered on time, supplier terms were aligned, product quality was managed etc.).

Focus areas of responsibility were in Vans and Hurley in retail stores. The company also bought over four other brands in Jeep; Superdry; Levis and Diesel and I assisted in the integration of these brands into the company structure. I also assisted in various other roles (still ongoing) in the development of reports to assist in several business functions such as pricing architecture: critical path, size profile analysis, store capacity in relation to planning.

Key responsibilities included working with both local and international suppliers across brands such as Canterbury, Columbia, Speedo, Dunlop, Slazenger, Mizuno, Opro and more. Liaising with National Sales Managers to ensure adequate inflow of stock according to Internationally set buy windows. Management of key NOOS (never-out-of-stock) lines to ensure a broad complement of companies/customers have their needs met. Dealing closely with Procurement to ensure ordering and tracking of orders done timeously. Costing of all items in the ranges to ensure margin requirements are maintained. Strategic intent a big deliverable and key to this is working on 3-year and 5-year plans. Left due to being retrenched.

Managed a planning portfolio encompassing all planning functions from the setting of budgets to assortment/item planning; store planning; allocations and product planning.

2013 – 2014 (Left due to restructure)Merchandise Planner Ladieswear (Promoted) Outbound Logistics ManagerResponsibilities:Managed 3 people; worked closely with the planning and logistics teams to ensure a more efficient distribution of stock, reviewed the store profiling and allocation strategy in the business. Strategic business intent and interaction with key relevant stakeholders

2004 – 2012 EDCON Specialist Planner – Jet Mart, Jet Infants Wear, Project SME, Edgars Ladieswear (Jet – Value Chain)ResponsibilitiesAll traditional planning functions, including management of designate and trainee planners.