Cellular Planner

About the role:

The purpose of the Cellular Planner is to be responsible for the commercial planning, forecasting and performance management of cellular products (SIMs, airtime, data and related value added services) across the Shoprite retail network. The role translates cellular strategy into robust cellular plans, provides data driven insights to support pricing, promotions and campaigns, and ensures alignment between commercial plans and operational execution to drive profitable growth and optimise stock efficiency.

What you'll do:

Cellular Planning & Forecasting

• Develop and maintain sales and forecasts across cellular products, channels, stores and customer segments.
• Apply quantitative planning techniques to forecast activations, recharges, usage and revenue.
• Incorporate historical performance, promotional calendars, pricing inputs and external factors into planning assumptions.
• Continuously refine forecast accuracy through variance tracking and performance analysis.

Commercial Performance Management

• Track daily, weekly and monthly performance against plan, including volume, revenue and margin.
• Identify trends, risks and out of line performance and recommend corrective actions.
• Conduct variance and root cause analysis to support informed decision making.
• Support margin optimisation through analysis of demand patterns and offer performance.

Product, Pricing & Campaign Support

• Provide analytical input into pricing changes, promotional mechanics and bundled offers.
• Support planning for product launches, campaigns and promotional events.
• Assess expected commercial impact and perform post campaign performance reviews.
• Use insights to improve future planning cycles and commercial effectiveness.

Store & Channel Planning Enablement

• Align cellular plans with store execution capacity, distribution constraints and peak trading periods.
• Support planning across retail stores, contact centres and digital channels.
• Identify operational risks that may affect delivery of the commercial plan.
• Ensure planning assumptions are grounded in operational and supply realities.

Data, Reporting & Insight Delivery

• Consolidate and analyse data from multiple sources to support planning and performance tracking.
• Produce regular dashboards, reports and planning insights for stakeholders.
• Ensure data integrity, consistency of metrics and transparency of assumptions.
• Translate complex data into clear, decision ready insights.

Stakeholder Collaboration

• Partner with Cellular, Financial Services, Marketing, Finance, Data & Analytics, Retail Operations and Supply Chain teams.
• Engage with external partners where performance or planning inputs are required.
• Act as a trusted planning and analytical support resource within the cellular value chain.

What you bring:

• Degree in Commerce, Analytics, Supply Chain, Finance or a related field (essential).
• +5 years’ experience in planning, forecasting, commercial analysis or performance management within retail, telecommunications, financial services or similar environment (essential).
• Exposure to MVNO models, telco partnerships or digital product environments (preferred).
• Experience with planning systems, BI tools or structured performance reporting (preferred).
• Understanding of prepaid cellular or high volume consumer product economics (essential).
• Experience in a retail enabled or multi channel operating environment (preferred).