At a time when global supply chains are being reshaped by shifting demand patterns, geopolitical pressures and the need for greater responsiveness, the role of planning has become increasingly strategic. At PUMA, this evolution is being driven in part by a move towards more centralised decision making at Global Headquarters, alongside a renewed focus on inventory discipline, market proximity and cross-functional alignment. As Senior Director of Supply Chain Planning, Munir Trad sits at the centre of this transformation, helping to redefine how planning supports both global consistency and regional agility, while ensuring the business remains resilient, efficient and closely attuned to its key markets.
Q. PUMA has been evolving its planning model with a greater emphasis on centralised decision making at Global Headquarters. What has driven this shift, and how are you ensuring the balance between global consistency and the specific needs of regional markets is maintained?
A. The shift toward greater centralization at Global Headquarters has been primarily driven by a desire to create stronger alignment and consistency across product, brand, and merchandising strategies under the new leadership and Board. This ensures that PUMA presents a cohesive global identity and maximizes the impact of its key franchises across markets.
At the same time, this evolution has elevated the role of planning within the regions. As highlighted in recent earnings calls, regions—particularly North America—are playing a critical role in addressing elevated inventory levels and navigating market-specific dynamics.
Balancing global consistency with regional needs requires close collaboration between merchandising, demand planning, and inventory management teams. We focus on aligning stocking policies, managing product lifecycles effectively, and applying disciplined pricing and discount strategies where appropriate.
Ultimately, our objective is to ensure that inventory is optimized while maintaining a healthy marketplace—delivering the right product, at the right price, in the right place—fully aligned with global direction, yet responsive to the realities of each local market.
Q. With more strategic direction coming from the centre, how has the role of regional planning teams changed in practice, and what capabilities are becoming more important at a local level as a result?
A. As strategic direction becomes more centralized, the role of regional planning teams has increasingly shifted toward disciplined execution and market-specific translation of global priorities. In practice, this means ensuring that centrally defined strategies are implemented in a way that reflects local demand patterns, inventory positions, and operational realities.
In the near to mid-term, a critical capability is the ability to address immediate challenges—particularly elevated inventory levels—while keeping a clear line of sight on future product flows and strategic objectives. This requires planning teams to make decisions today that not only resolve short-term pressures but also position the business effectively for upcoming assortments in 2027 and beyond.
As a result, capabilities in Inventory Management and Demand Planning have become even more essential, enabling better alignment between supply, demand, and commercial objectives. In parallel, Capacity Management is emerging as a key focus area, ensuring that our warehousing and distribution networks are appropriately sized and structured to support the business over the next three to five years.
Ultimately, regional teams are becoming more forward-looking, data-driven, and operationally integrated—playing a critical role in bridging global strategy with local execution.
Q. Inventory normalisation has become a key focus across the industry, particularly around legacy or ageing products. How is PUMA approaching inventory clean-up, and what role does planning play in creating a more disciplined and responsive product lifecycle?
A. Inventory normalisation has long relied on a set of well-established levers within the industry—such as outlet channels, closeout wholesale partners, and targeted discounting—and those mechanisms remain relevant today. However, the approach is becoming more disciplined and forward-looking.
What is evolving—at PUMA and across the industry—is a greater emphasis on proactively managing the product lifecycle to reduce the build-up of ageing inventory in the first place. Where commercially viable, we are extending the lifecycle of key franchise and legacy products by maintaining them within the assortment for longer, supported by more sustained and consistent marketing. This allows us to maximize full-price sell-through and improve overall inventory productivity.
At the same time, there is a shift away from designing product specifically for secondary channels such as outlets. Instead, excess inventory from core ranges is being more strategically redirected, ensuring better alignment between primary and secondary markets while protecting brand positioning.
Planning plays a central role in this transformation. By improving demand forecasting, aligning buys more closely with true market needs, and actively managing lifecycle decisions—from launch to exit—we are able to create a more responsive and controlled flow of product. The objective is not only to clean up inventory more effectively, but to embed greater discipline upstream, ultimately reducing the need for reactive measures over time.
Q. Looking ahead, how do you ensure that lessons from past inventory challenges are embedded into future planning cycles, rather than treated as a one-off correction?
A. While no advanced tool or model can fully anticipate the level of disruption the industry has faced over the past five to ten years—ranging from COVID and geopolitical tensions to tariffs and organizational shifts—there are clear patterns and lessons that can be systematically embedded into future planning cycles.
At PUMA, this starts with strengthening the feedback loop between past performance and future decisions. We continuously analyze what drove imbalances—whether in demand signals, buying decisions, or lifecycle management—and translate those insights into more disciplined planning assumptions and guardrails.
Equally important is the combination of data-driven decision-making with experience and judgment. Planning is not purely mathematical; it also relies on pattern recognition developed over time, as well as informed intuition. Bringing those elements together allows us to better stress-test scenarios and make more resilient decisions.
Another critical evolution is expanding the decision-making process to be more cross-functional. By involving teams beyond the traditional planning scope—such as merchandising, finance, and operations—we ensure that a broader set of perspectives is incorporated, leading to more balanced and sustainable outcomes.
Ultimately, embedding these lessons is about building a more adaptive and integrated planning capability—one that continuously learns, challenges assumptions, and evolves. That is what enables us to move from reactive corrections to more proactive and resilient decision-making, and is a key reason why our approach is increasingly seen as a benchmark within the industry.
Q. Tariff uncertainty, particularly in the U.S. market, continues to create complexity for global brands. How is the Planning function working alongside Sourcing to mitigate risk while still protecting margin and maintaining a competitive product offering?
A. Tariff uncertainty—particularly in the U.S. market—requires a highly agile and coordinated approach between Planning and Sourcing. At its core, our response is built on speed, adaptability, and structured scenario planning.
We have developed the capability to rapidly build ad hoc, flexible tools to model different tariff scenarios and assess their impact on cost, margin, and flow of goods. This allows us to make informed decisions quickly and, where needed, influence sourcing strategies, supplier allocation, or logistics flows in near real time.
Equally important is how we operationalize these insights. We work in a highly cross-functional manner, often bringing together Planning, Sourcing, Finance, and Logistics in focused, “war room” environments to evaluate trade-offs and align on the best course of action. This ensures that decisions are not made in silos, but reflect a balanced view of risk, profitability, and service.
While it is not always possible to fully protect margin in every scenario, our priority is to maintain continuity of supply and ensure that the right product remains available to our customers. By combining rapid scenario planning with cross-functional alignment, we are able to mitigate risk effectively while sustaining both commercial performance and a competitive product offering.
Q. To what extent does this closer alignment between Planning and Sourcing influence decisions around range architecture, product mix, and long-term cost strategy?
A. The alignment between Planning and Sourcing is one of the most critical drivers of success in our industry, particularly when it comes to shaping range architecture, product mix, and long-term cost strategy. Within PUMA, our partnership with sourcing is especially pivotal, as it directly influences both the speed to market and the cost structure of our products—two factors that can significantly impact overall financial performance.
What is often underestimated is the level of complexity behind buying and production decisions. These are not one-size-fits-all processes; they involve navigating constraints such as lead times, minimum order quantities, supplier capacities, and critical calendar milestones. In many cases, decisions are made six to twelve months ahead of execution, during which time market conditions can shift considerably.
This is where close alignment becomes essential. By maintaining a strong, continuous connection between Planning and Sourcing, we are able to dynamically adjust—whether scaling up or down, or responding to cost and demand fluctuations—while staying within operational constraints. This directly informs how we structure assortments, balance product mix, and manage cost over the long term.
Ultimately, this collaboration builds a more resilient and responsive operating model. It ensures that we can adapt to change without compromising the integrity of our plans, and consistently deliver a strong, competitive product offering despite an increasingly volatile environment.
Q. A key theme for PUMA is becoming ‘closer to market’ through improved timelines. How are you reshaping planning processes to give wholesale partners and key accounts more time and confidence in their buying decisions, without compromising speed, efficiency, or product relevance?
While specific details are confidential, the overarching focus has been on critically reassessing our end-to-end timelines to ensure they truly add value—both internally and for our wholesale partners.
Our new global leadership brings experience from organizations that operate with more market-proximate calendars, which has helped challenge some of our legacy milestones. In certain cases, we identified steps in the process that added complexity without meaningfully improving decision quality or outcomes. Streamlining these has allowed us to simplify the planning cycle and create more effective timelines.
Equally important has been placing greater emphasis on the voice of our customers. Historically, feedback from wholesale partners on timing and decision windows was not always fully integrated into our processes. That is now changing. We are actively reshaping our planning approach to provide partners with earlier visibility, clearer direction, and greater confidence in their buying decisions.
The goal is to strike the right balance—giving our partners more time and clarity without slowing down the organization. By simplifying processes, improving cross-functional alignment, and anchoring decisions closer to real market needs, we are creating a model that is both more responsive and more efficient for all stakeholders.