Job Description:

Logistics Associate: Purchasing and Inventory Management

July 25, 2018 – Kahtoola, Inc.

About Kahtoola

Kahtoola is an outdoor equipment design and manufacturing company with a history of product innovation and excellence. Headquartered in the beautiful mountain town of Flagstaff, AZ, all our associates are located here and work closely as a team to best address the opportunities and challenges of growing our business.

Founded in 1999, Kahtoola is the market leader for the category of flexible footwear traction products in the outdoor industry and is positioned for strong future growth in other outdoor product segments. In addition to making high-quality gear, we support social responsibility, foster strong community relationships and inspire outdoor adventure. As associates, we are a company of users who love great gear and getting outside and work hard to take on business challenges together while enjoying a supportive, fun, and casual work environment.

 Job Description

In this comprehensive role the candidate will manage purchasing and inventory management transactions including product sourcing, demand planning and inventory forecasting, writing of purchase orders (PO), specifying delivery dates and follow-up logistics tracking. The position acts as a liaison with Accounts Payable (A/P) for supplier invoicing and payments. The role is the primary point of contact to the company in regards to product availability.

 The Ideal Candidate Will:

• Be energized by working for a company dedicated to designing and manufacturing best-in-class, high-quality outdoor products.
• Take pride playing a key role in a small but motivated and talented team.
• Possess a detail-oriented, organizational and analytical temperament.
• Thrive in problem solving and developing creative solutions to a variety of problems.
• Be able to collaborate effectively with and manage execution across multiple teams.

 Responsibilities Include:

• Interact with sales and product design to collect market and sales data (historical sales trends) with the goal to develop a demand forecast that supports company goals while identifying risks and opportunities.
• Develop comprehensive financial plans, create schedules to plan, forecast and purchase inventory, fabric, and trims positions that maximize inventory levels and inventory turns.
• Ensure flow of inventory meets in-stock levels to meet sales and inventory goals.
• Manage the accuracy of inventory through cycle or monthly inventory counts and provide root cause analysis of discrepancies.
• Analyze style and SKU sales performance to determine open-to-buy or inventory liabilities.
• Identify risks of discontinued (end-of-life) inventory and communicate with sales to develop strategies for mitigation.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with existing vendors and their representatives, as well as seek and develop new supplier contacts as necessary for new company products, cost savings and/or tariff reductions.
• Conduct meetings with suppliers to obtain quotations and negotiate prices and delivery dates.
• Assist with product and customer pricing in consultation with sales to meet required product margins.
• Maintain margin analysis detail by product, comparing forecast margin to actual margin.
• Coordinate and procure sales samples for sales representatives, distributors, and trade shows that align with sales cycles to demonstrate available products and colors.
• Maintain master item file for company and Amazon Standard Identification Numbers (ASIN), item descriptions, warehouse channels, pricing and UPC codes.
• Develop product sustainability standards that ensure products are made in a manner that respects workers and minimizes the impact of our products on the natural environment.

Required Job Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Operations, Manufacturing Supply Chain or a business-related field or equivalent experience.
• Three years of related inventory management and forecasting experience.
• High level of Excel proficiency (advanced formulas, pivot tables, etc.)
• Self-starter who seeks methods to improve processes with ability to be effective in a metric driven environment.

Preferred Experience and Skills:

• Proven ability to problem solve complex issues that arise from inventory.
• Excellent communication (verbal and written), organizational, analytical, and administrative skills (role is vendor and internal associate-facing).
• Experience working independently with overseas factories.

This is a year-round, full-time position located in Flagstaff, AZ.

Kahtoola is committed to a drug-free workplace. All employment is contingent upon successful completion of drug and background screening. Kahtoola requires all applicants to be eligible to work within the U.S.

To apply, please email a resume and cover letter to careers@kahtoola.com. Please apply by August 31, 2018. Email (electronic) applications only; no walk-ins, please.