Global Sales & Operations Planning Lead

Back-up

Would you like to contribute to improving the quality of life of people with hearing loss? At Oticon/ITSA Medical, we develop, produce, and market bone-anchored hearing systems. At our site in Vallauris (Sophia Antipolis), in the south of France, we specialize in the production of active implantable Class III medical devices and will soon manage the worldwide distribution of the company’s full product portfolio. The site also hosts an R&D team and the French sales organization.

As part of our ongoing growth and operational excellence strategy, we are looking for Global S&OP (Sales & Operations Planning) Lead to own the end-to-end integrated planning process that aligns demand, supply, inventory, finance and strategic objectives.

The role leads the monthly S&OP cycle, from data gathering through the Executive S&OP meeting, and ensures that the organization operates against a single, consensus-based and financially reconciled plan. The S&OP Manager acts as the bridge between Sales, Marketing, Supply Chain, Production, Procurement, Finance and Executive Leadership, translating commercial ambitions and market signals into executable, cost-effective operational plans.

Responsibilities

S&OP Ownership & Governance

• Design, run and continuously improve the monthly S&OP cycle (Product, Demand, Supply, Pre-S&OP, Executive S&OP).
• Maintain the S&OP calendar, governance model, agendas, inputs and outputs.
• Facilitate cross-functional meetings; document, assign and track decisions, trade-offs and actions.
• Escalate unresolved conflicts and risks to the Executive S&OP with options, financial impact and recommendations.

Demand Planning & Forecast Alignment

• Oversee the statistical baseline and consensus demand plan, challenging Sales and Marketing assumptions.
• Integrate commercial inputs: promotions, launches, phase-outs, pricing, customers, seasonality, demos.
• Monitor forecast accuracy, bias and FVA; lead root-cause analysis and corrective actions.
• Manage demand segmentation, NPI forecasting, ramp-ups, phase-outs and life-cycle management.

Supply Planning & Capacity Management

• Turn the consensus demand plan into a feasible supply plan (production, sourcing, external manufacturing, logistics, distribution).
• Assess capacity (production, warehouses, suppliers) against demand; identify constraints over 12–24 months.
• Develop business continuity plans.
• Align with Procurement on material availability, lead times, long-lead items and supplier capacity.
• Ensure the master production plan (MPP) and logistics plans are consistent with the S&OP plan.

Inventory & Service-Level Management

• Support inventory targets (safety stock, coverage, min/max) in line with service-level and working-capital goals.
• Monitor inventory health: E&O, slow-moving stock, shortages, aging, write-off risk.
• Manage allocation rules and prioritization during supply shortages.

Performance Management & Reporting

• Define, track and publish S&OP KPIs: forecast accuracy, plan adherence, service level (OTIF, fill rate, backorders), inventory.
• Produce executive-ready dashboards with insights, variance analysis and recommended actions.
• Propose improvements to reporting accuracy.
• Ensure a single source of truth and consistent data across functions.

Leadership & Stakeholder Management

• Partner with and coach supply planners.
• Build strong relationships and influence senior stakeholders (Sales, Marketing, Operations, Procurement, Logistics, Finance, General Management).
• Foster accountability, collaboration, data-driven decisions and continuous improvement.
• Train the organization to embed S&OP discipline.

Strategic & Project Contribution

• Support strategic projects: product launches, site transfers, supplier changes, capacity investments, make-or-buy decisions.
• Contribute to the long-term supply chain strategy and multi-year capacity and investment plan.

Qualifications

Required :

• Bachelor's degree (Master's preferred) in Supply Chain Management, Industrial Engineering, Business Administration, Operations Management, Economics or a related field.

• 6–10 years of experience in supply chain, demand / supply planning, or S&OP

• Proven track record of running and improving an S&OP process in a complex, multi-site or multi-country environment.

• Strong understanding of end-to-end supply chain, manufacturing, inventory management and financial concepts (P&L, working capital, margins).

• Advanced proficiency with planning systems such as SAP IBP, SAP APO, Kinaxis, o9 Solutions, Anaplan, Blue Yonder, OMP, Oracle…

• Excel; experience with BI tools (Power BI, Tableau, Qlik). • Professional proficiency in English mandatory.

Preferred :

• Industry experience in medical devices

Behavioral :

• Influence without authority: ability to align and challenge senior stakeholders with different priorities.

• Facilitation and negotiation: drives consensus and resolves conflicts constructively.

• Analytical and structured thinking: turns complex data into clear insight and decisions.

• Communication: concise, executive-level storytelling, written and verbal.

• Leadership: coaches teams and builds a planning culture of accountability.

• Agility and resilience: thrives in ambiguity and fast-changing environments.

• Business orientation: balances service, cost, cash and risk with an enterprise view.

• Continuous-improvement mindset: challenges the status quo and drives standardization.