Your Opportunity as the Manager, Sales Strategy & Planning
The Manager, Sales Strategy & Planning owns the customer planning story, performance enablement, and cross-functional alignment for assigned customers or channel. This role serves as a strategic business partner to Sales, helping to identify and activate SBA opportunities into customer-specific actions, recommendations and decision-ready planning deliverables. The position is responsible for enabling high-quality customer plans, capturing customer forecast assumptions, enabling consensus discussions, business reviews, and growth recommendations through strong process leadership and cross-functional influence.
Location: JM Smucker Corporate Offices in Orrville, Ohio
Work Arrangements: Hybrid - onsite during core weeks as determined by the Company (estimated up to 9 days a month); adjusted as the need requires. Intermittent business travel may be required.
In this role you will:
Customer Strategy Planning
- Own the internal customer planning story for assigned customers or channels, including performance, risks, opportunities, actions, and follow-through.
- Support annual planning, Joint Business Planning (JBP), customer business reviews, customer planning cycles, and strategic growth initiatives.
- Translate SBA priorities into customer-specific actions, recommendations, and planning assumptions that connect account-level decisions to the broader SBA, channel, or business plan.
- Facilitate prioritization discussions and planning trade-offs in partnership with Sales and cross-functional stakeholders.
Business Performance Management
- Use data to explain performance, identify risks and opportunities and recommend action for assigned customers or customer portfolios.
- Support gap-solving and prepare clear updates or recommendations for planning, consensus, Stage Gate, resets, and customer decisions.
- Develop data-driven recommendations that support customer outcomes and enterprise objectives.
- Track customer scorecards, risks, opportunities, innovation performance, promotion results, and progress against plans.
Cross-Functional Coordination
- Engage with partners across Sales, Brand Marketing, Category Analytics, Revenue Growth Management, Finance, Supply Chain, Marketing Operations, and other functions to solve customer or plan issues.
- Facilitate planning discussions to ensure key stakeholder alignment across customer priorities, investments, execution plans, and key decisions.
- Drive accountability for planning actions, open issues, and business commitments.
- Ensure customer planning deliverables are clear, decision-ready, and connected to business priorities.
Decision Support & Influence
- Frame alternatives, trade-offs, implications, and recommendations to enable better customer planning and Sales decisions.
- Help stakeholders navigate ambiguity, competing priorities, and changing business conditions.
- Support forecasting and planning processes by validating assumptions and escalating issues to the appropriate decision owner.
- Apply standard planning governance while adjusting recommendations to meet customer-specific needs.
Contributing to Organizational Growth & Culture
- Coach Associate Managers and project team members as appropriate.
- Share planning best practices and customer-specific learnings across the organization.
- Model planning discipline, commercial judgment, collaboration, and an ownership mindset.
- Respect all individuals, support efforts for diversity and inclusion, and recognize value in embracing divergent styles.
What we are looking for:
Minimum Requirements:
- Bachelor's degree
- 5 years of experience in Commercial Planning, Sales Planning, Category Management, Customer Strategy, Revenue Growth Management, Finance, Marketing, or related business functions
- Experience in the Convenience Channel both direct and utilizing distributors
- Experience leading cross-functional business initiatives and customer planning activities
- Experience supporting business performance management, planning processes, and decision support
- Strong commercial acumen, analytical capability, communication skills, and stakeholder management skills
Additional skills and experience that we think would make someone successful in this role:
- Sales account ownership
- Consumer Packaged Goods experience
- Experience leading customer planning, JBP development, business reviews, forecasting inputs, or performance management
- Ability to synthesize complex information and develop actionable recommendations
- Experience influencing cross-functional partners and navigating ambiguity
- Experience with business intelligence, retailer, syndicated, or internal reporting tools
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The Right Place for You
We are bold, kind, strive to do the right thing, we play to win, and we believe in a strong community that thrives together. Our culture is rooted in our Basic Beliefs, and we believe in supporting every employee by meeting their physical, emotional, and financial needs.
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We're an equal opportunity employer. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, age, national origin, disability status or protected veteran status.