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Fulfillment Specialist - Supply Chain

Logistics, Shipping & Operations

10+ years in diverse experiences in product line management, supply-chain, account planning, market analysis, reporting and go-to-market activities in the performance athletic footwear and sporting goods industries. Track record of helping companies reach goals.

* Product Line Management
* Supply Chain Fulfillment
* Analytics - Market and Sales
* Market Research - Quantitative and Qualitative
* Pricing Management and Strategy
* Strategic Planning
* Merchandising
* Budgets
* U.S. Customs
* Cross-Functional Collaboration
* Communications - Written and Oral
* Collaboration
* Account Planning, Management and Support
* Presentations

Account Planning: Strategic and in-season style planning for five key customers (Bass Pro, Academy, Dick’s, West Marine, Bealls) for the Guy Harvey and AFTCO apparel businesses. Successfully added structure to the process that wasn’t there previously and added insight from previous experiences to rationalize styles and improve sales performance. AFTCO apparel sales achieved a compound growth rate of 20% over the past three years.

Reporting: Managed weekly reporting of sell-thru, inventory and trend analysis utilizing syndicated information from SPS with internal reports.

Collaboration: Instituted a continuous communication process with buyers and customer teams to discuss general business and market conditions, discuss styles that were selling well/not well and discuss action plans based on that information.

Account Support: Managed the SKU set-up and maintenance processes for customers each season, as well as additional styles during a season. Some accounts had a SKU count well over 200.

Strategic Accounts Planner

Progressive and diverse roles within the company:
Product Line Coordinator – Footwear; Product Marketing Manager – Footwear; Manager, Strategic Planning and Consumer Insights; Industry Analyst; Import Duty and Customs Analyst/Advisor; Operations Project Coordinator; Business Analyst

Product Line Management: Managed the portfolio for the North American market in the categories of Cross-Training, Wrestling, Volleyball, Tennis, Golf, Cheer, Women’s Fitness, Cleated Sports and Walking. Achieved #1 market share position in Wrestling, Volleyball and Cheer. Achieved top five market share position in Training, Tennis and individual cleated sports (Softball, Field Hockey).

Market Research: Performed continuous qualitative and quantitative research on each category and their consumers. Monitored events, communicated with consumers, Communicated with buyers/sales team, then validated using third-party quantitative information.

Business Management: Prepared multi-season product line forecasts, pricing and profit numbers to roll up to the category, department and corporate financial goals. Collaborated with the product development teams to manage gross margins through pricing and manufacturing cost containment (upper materials, pattern adjustments, duties, mold amortization and production forecasts). Successfully finalized styles with increased starting margins in the 45%+ range.

Budgets: Performed expense-to-budget tracking, invoice processing and payment for a 3PL project. Successfully maintained project within budget.

Projects: Utilized basic management tools such as Visio, task tracking and meeting minutes to coordinate business process projects. Managed task force committees that identified gaps and executed improvement that increased productivity and profitability through reduced cost.

U.S. Customs Subject Matter Expert: Assigned to advise the footwear department on the impact of tariffs on materials and construction. Inspected then assigned applicable HTS code and import duty rate. Depending on the style, advised changes to materials or patterns to reduce the duty rate from 38.5% down to 20%, or 20% to 8.5%.

International Collaboration: Prepared product briefs that were clear in purpose and scope, but could be understood by the design and development teams based in Japan and well as partners based in Australia and Europe. Each meeting included all stakeholders so navigating the communication and understanding of each position was the important process. Each season included additional rounds of changes to design and construction so communication was crucial to ensure all stakeholders were on board.

Strategic Planning: Reporting to the CEO, served as a coordinator to the leadership team to assemble and construct the presentation deck for board meetings in Japan. Assigned to research and assemble qualitative and quantitative information on the general U.S macro-economic landscape, overall U.S. retail market, overall athletic footwear market and where ASICS stood in all of this.

Presentations: Performed product presentations to major account buying teams (Dick’s Sporting Goods, Academy Sports, JC Penney, Foot Locker, Kohl’s, Amazon, Zappos and Famous Footwear), partly in support of the sales team but also to obtain feedback for the product team to evaluate if the projects are on track or changes need to be made. This process saved millions of dollars of underachieving product while maximizing sales of successful styles.

Product Manager, Product Marketing, Business Analyst, Strategic Planning, Insights

Kraig Kobayashi is a Fulfillment Specialist - Supply Chain at Boardriders in Mission Viejo, CA.

Kraig Kobayashi

Kraig Kobayashi

Kraig Kobayashi

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