Retail Planning Systems Consultant

INTRODUCTION

At Burberry, we believe creativity opens spaces. Our purpose is to unlock the power of imagination to push boundaries and open new possibilities for our people, our customers and our communities. This is the core belief that has guided Burberry since it was founded in 1856 and is central to how we operate as a company today.   

We aim to provide an environment for creative minds from different backgrounds to thrive, bringing a wide range of skills and experiences to everything we do. As a purposeful, values-driven brand, we are committed to being a force for good in the world as well, creating the next generation of sustainable luxury for customers, driving industry change and championing our communities. 

JOB PURPOSE

The Retail Planning Systems Consultant sits within the IT, Planning & Merchandising domain-aligned team and operates within one of two scrums. The role is responsible for the hands-on engineering, configuration, and maintenance planning and merchandising solutions across Burberry's end-to-end processes, including allocation, replenishment and forecasting.

Working closely with the Delivery Manager, Business Analysts, and Solution Architects, this role delivers change and continuous improvement items from the product team's backlog, while also contributing technical engineering capacity to Planning & Merchandising-related programmes.

The role is expected to validate and challenge partner output, engineering estimates, and solution designs, strengthening Burberry's ability to hold third-party delivery to account. It also supports the shift toward DevOps maturity within the scrum by owning and embedding engineering standards across both internal and outsourced resources.

This role is critical to building retained, in-house engineering capability in a domain where system reliability is essential to commercial operations providing deep Board platform expertise that enables the scrum to operate without over-reliance on external resources and ensuring continuity of knowledge across business-critical capabilities

Purpose

To deliver and configure business-critical planning and merchandising capabilities as part of their domain-aligned product team, ensuring solutions are reliable, scalable, and aligned to business priorities.

The Retail Planning Systems Consultant provides hands-on engineering and configuration expertise across the Board platform, delivering change and continuous improvement items from the product team's backlog. The role validates and challenges partner output and engineering estimates, supports the shift toward DevOps maturity by owning engineering standards within the scrum, and contributes technical capacity to Board-related programmes where required.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Configure and develop solutions supporting planning and merchandising processes (e.g. forecasting, allocation, replenishment, open-to-buy), using platforms such as Board and related tooling.
• Operate within a scrum team delivering backlog items and supporting live services. 
• Engage in sprint ceremonies (planning, refinement, retrospectives, demos), providing the technical voice on feasibility, dependencies, and delivery approach.
• Deliver both change (enhancements, improvements) and run (defect resolution, stability) activities within the team backlog. 
• Translate business requirements (from Business Analysts) into robust configurations, calculations, and workflows.
• Work under the direction of the Senior Product & Delivery Manager to execute backlog priorities and deliver agreed outcomes.
• Contribute technical engineering capacity to Planning & Merchandising-related programmes (e.g. major platform changes, re-platforming initiatives) when demand requires support beyond the product team's standard backlog.
• Collaborate with Solution Architects to ensure solutions align to enterprise architecture standards, integration patterns, and data models.
• Support integrations between domain platforms and enterprise systems (e.g. SAP, PLM, data platforms), recognising the high level of dependency across the domain. 
• Identify and escalate platform risks (e.g. technical debt, performance degradation, upgrade dependencies) to the Senior Product & Delivery Manager, contributing to the team's risk and dependency management.
• Troubleshoot and resolve platform issues, ensuring minimal disruption to business-critical planning and merchandising processes.
• Contribute to backlog refinement and estimation, providing technical input on feasibility, effort, and risks.
• Support testing activities (unit, integration, business validation) to ensure solutions meet functional and non-functional requirements.
• Maintain clear documentation of platform configurations, models, and processes to support operational continuity.
• Oversee and direct third-party engineering resources operating within the scrum, ensuring delivery quality, adherence to engineering standards, and alignment to backlog priorities.
• Provide technical challenge and assurance on partner outputs, estimates and solution approaches.
• Participate in the engineering community of practice across Burberry IT, sharing knowledge and aligning to enterprise-wide engineering standards and tooling expectations.

PERSONAL PROFILE

• Configuration or engineering capacity.
• Strong understanding of planning and merchandising processes (e.g. allocation, replenishment, forecasting, open-to-buy).
• Experience working within Agile or scrum-based delivery teams.
• Familiarity with integrated enterprise environments (e.g. SAP, PLM, data platforms).
• Ability to translate business requirements into scalable and maintainable technical solutions.
• Strong problem-solving capability, particularly in diagnosing and resolving live platform issues.
• Hands-on engineering mindset, with focus on delivery rather than architectural ownership.