Coles Vendor Replenishment Planner

Who we are?

On any given day, 2.5 billion people globally use Unilever products to feel good, look good and get more out of life. Many of our brands are well-known, household staples and old-time favourites including Dove, Rexona, Lynx, Vaseline, OMO/Persil, Surf, TRESemmé, Continental, Ben & Jerry’s and Streets. 

We have a long tradition of being a progressive, responsible business. It goes back to the days of our founder William Lever, who launched the world’s first purposeful brand, Sunlight Soap more than 100 years ago, and it’s at the heart of how we run our company today. In 2022 Unilever Australia & New Zealand became a Certified B Corporation™ (B Corp), joining a growing network of organisations committed to galvanising a stronger, more inclusive, equitable and regenerative economy for all.  

A job at Unilever is a career made by you, with development opportunities, benefits and a working culture that embraces diversity and is pioneering flexibility. There’s no better time to join our team! 

Job Description Overview

The Coles VRP role is a critical role in our Coles - Unilever Supply Chain partnership. This Role is based in the Coles head office in Melbourne. The role is part of our customer supply chain team, reporting to the customer experience manager. In this role you will manage the Coles replenishment systems to execute orders plans with a hyper focus on excellent delivered in full on time (DIFOT). You will also build and manage internal and external stakeholders to maintain strong relationships and lead collaborative planning to drive continuous improvement for both Coles and Unilever.

Key Responsibilities:

Manage Coles DIFOT service levels

• Responsible for replenishing Customer Distribution Centers (DC) for a range of Unilever products, including order placements and monitoring automated orders generated by the system

• Ensure replenishment plans and purchase orders accurately meet store scan and DC demand and involves monitoring automated orders generated by the system and ad-hoc order placement with a view to resolving any urgent supply concerns

• Daily & weekly reporting on customer KPIs is required and maintain historical information

• Review projected orders to ensure that the relevant customer activities are updated in customer system and orders are being generated in line with the agreed forecast

• Engage relevent planning teams for service level issues and complete root cause analysis and service improvement plan in presentable formats that can be shared with internal stakeholders and customers

• Attend weekly customer service meetings within Unilever to understand OOS’s and risk and for the VRP to add insights back to internal teams on pipefill or oversells

• Attend weekly service review meeting (internal to Unilever) to understand the upcoming service risks

• Lead Collaboration meetings with the Coles team

• Engage with customer supply chain team to stay on top of customer requirements and foresee likely points of escalation

• Manage NPD SKUs in a an effective manner to avoid any unnecessary risk to service

• Analyse overstocks and provide insights and recommendations

Maintain Data Integrity

• Maintain and manage data integrity within the customer systems to ensure accuracy and efficiency in the replenishment process.  Involves optimising parameters such as pallet configurations, economic order quantities, min and max orders size, order rosters etc.

• Ensure that data updates for future innovations are done in timely manner and meet the quality standards set forth by the customer

• Engage with customer on understanding the most updated requirement of lead times for new products

Collaborative Approach & Stakeholder Management

• This is a high-profile role which requires effective communication, negotiation and strong stakeholder management skills to maintain customer relationship

• It is critical you are able to build supportive and collaborative relationships to achieve a positive outcome for the Coles and Unilever is essential for this role.  This involves building strong customer relationships with the Coles Supply team and internally at Unilever with Demand & Supply teams, Customer Managers, logistics team & Customer Service

What You Will Need to Succeed

Experiences & Qualifications

• Minimum experience of 3 years in Customer Service or Customer Development roles

• Knowledge of systems SAP, Workflow, GS1, MS Excel (min Intermediate) & Coles order systems

• Degree qualified: Bachelors

• Should have good knowledge of Customer requirements in an Australian environment

Key Skills:

• Excellent communication and presentation skills

• Strong influencing skills and interpersonal skills

• Strong analytical skills and attention to detail

• Strong team commitment and results delivery orientation

• Strong experience in Supply Chain or Customer Development

• Basic understanding of SAP & Excel

• Good understanding of Unilever product range

• Able to navigate through Power BI reports

• An excellent attitude

What awaits you at Unilever?

The core of Unilever’s culture is captured as Human, Purposeful, Accountable. You will be joining a dynamic, flexible, and inspiring work environment that truly cares about your wellbeing, values what you do and celebrates your success.

This is your opportunity to be part of a purpose-led business and a global community where you can progress your career both locally and internationally. You will also benefit from amazing discounts on external company products, attractive employee referral reward program amongst other benefits.

This is a great opportunity to work within an iconic and global organization. We have gained our reputation as one of the world's most admired employers by providing an environment where individuals can achieve their goals, both professionally and personally.

Make no mistake we expect a lot from our people as they do of us. So, if you can rise to the challenge, don't waste any time - apply now!

Unilever embraces diversity and encourages applicants from all walks of life! This means giving full and fair consideration to all applicants and continuing development of all employees regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marriage and civil partnership, and pregnancy and maternity.

Unilever is an organization committed to equity, inclusion and diversity to drive our business results and create a better future, every day, for our diverse employees, global consumers, partners, and communities.

This means we encourage people with all backgrounds to apply, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, Māori and Pacific Peoples, and people with disabilities. Interested in learning more, check out our Reconciliation Action Plan and Workplace Adjustment Policy on the Unilever webpage.

At Unilever we are interested in every individual bringing their ‘Whole Self’ to work and this includes you! We encourage you to advise us at the time of your application if you require any reasonable adjustment so that we can support you through your recruitment journey.