Lead Operations Research Scientist

About Us
Target is one of the world’s most recognized brands and one of the leading retailers of America. Fueling the continued success of one of the world’s most beloved and recognized brands, is a distinctly capable, creative and innovative Marketing organization. Target Marketing, is well known for inspiring and surprising guests, we pride ourselves on connecting them to the products and experiences they expect and deserve from Target. We study our guests to discover new needs and insights, and then craft every interaction to build brand love. We are market experts who insist on a clear and cohesive understanding of our business objectives, guest segments and behaviors, strategies and tactics, overcoming obstacles and measuring success. Our commitment to partnering both internally and with external agencies gives us a wide range of capabilities, from award-winning creative work to exciting and unique promotional marketing. Leveraging our collective assets and fostering a healthy, supportive and open team culture, we deliver a holistically gratifying experience that guests can only get at Target. We believe in providing seamless and easy shopping experiences to our guests, on both online and offline touch points, by designing the best experiences through a user centered design approach.
Target’s Global Supply Chain and Logistics is evolving at an incredible pace. We are constantly reimagining how we get the right product to the guest even better, faster and more cost effectively than before. We are becoming more intelligent, automated and algorithmic in our decision-making, so that no matter how guests shop—in stores or on Target.com—we deliver the convenience and immediate gratification they demand and deserve. We are on a mission to win decisively over any competitor, with a seamless and superior guest service experience unlike any they can offer. Our teams work with the agility our mission requires, and we constantly come together to implement new processes in record time. We’re looking for exceptional people who are proactive, creative, independent, innovative, risk-savvy and comfortable working in varying degrees of ambiguity. Are you a critical thinker who seeks the root cause and can analyze both qualitatively and quantitatively? Are you a creative problem-solver who simplifies problems, quickly identifies solutions, commits to a plan and then positively influences others to execute it? If so, you will have success on one of our dynamic teams.
A role in Network Planning and Global Intelligence means creating industry leading intelligence solutions to drive best in class omnichannel guest experiences at the lowest cost to Target. You might focus on enabling the future transportation operating model, optimizing inventory management, driving topology planning or leveraging deep business insights and analytics to propel Target’s Supply Chain. As a network steward, we create forecasts, design inventory optimization strategies and leverage technology to ensure our inventory is available at the right time, in the right places and quantity to meet the needs of our guest, stores and operational goals. Super-po ered first and foremost by our people, and supported by robust process and technology, we are a team of data-focused, curious minds who love to solve hard problems to enable a dynamic, fast paced Supply Chain Network. Our modern operating systems are built by Target and lead in the arena of automated large-scale supply chain planning and optimization systems running large-scale solves for complex optimization problems.
The Supply Chain Network Optimization team is part of Network planning and Global Intelligence team and responsible for providing insights, leading strategy, and optimization- based initiatives to drive the efficiency of Target’s overall supply chain network. The team member will need to use data engineering skills, statistical knowledge, simulation and modeling techniques while collaborating with data science, product, technology and business partners to transform Target’s fulfillment. This role will support cross-pyramid business teams and coordinate solutions across enterprise functions impacting productivity savings goals, system configuration accuracy (i.e. transit time, lead time, etc.), product roadmaps and process optimization
Reporting/Working Relationships
Role is based out of Target in India HQ in Bangalore. Role will report to the Director of Supply Chain Network Optimization based out of Target in India HQ in Bangalore. Role will work closely with Target Tech and data science team across globe and partners closely with Digital, Global Supply Chain & Logistics teams, Store Operations in USA.
Principal Roles & responsibilities
• Analyze large amounts of supply chain data at the most granular level & develop key metrics to evaluate the performance of supply chain across sales, transportation, operations and inventory.
• Based on data develop an understanding of operational and financial metrics of supply chain.
• Works with other optimization managers to analyze opportunities, quantify scope for improvement and define core areas of focus to improve guest experience and cost to serve in Target’s SCM.
• Conducts mathematical modeling, simulation, and statistical approaches to clearly define problems, build solutions and recommend next steps to the partners across Target like building operations, transportation teams, technology teams, etc
• Provides necessary information for and participates in pilot engagements to demonstrate business opportunities and ensures succession to standard process/practice where appropriate.
• Perform root cause analysis to understand key drivers related to operational performance and variance in the projected outcomes.
• Works closely with data science and engineering/product teams to help deploy new algorithmic solutions to support supply chain planning and control. Has the passion to engage in deep analytical, algorithmic work while staying connected to the core business teams
Requirements:
• BTECH/MTECH/MS in a quantitative disciple such as engineering, statistics, operations research or mathematics with minimum 6 years of overall industry experience and minimum 2 years of retail supply chain industry experience.
• Experience in business problem solving using analytical skills
• Familiarity with supply chain concepts such as forecasting, planning, optimization, and logistics - gained through work experience or graduate level education
• Experience with statistical tools such as SAS, R, SPSS and with scripting languages such as Python for analyzing data and building prototypes and solutions
• Knowledge of statistics and data mining techniques and tools to analyze and make insights from big data such as historical sales data and simulation/experiment results
• Familiarity in the following fields: simulation, A/B testing, optimization, decision analysis, stochastic models, forecasting, mathematical modeling or machine learning.
• A good understanding of analysis of algorithms and computational complexity.
• Technical aptitude and familiarity with the design and use of complex supply chain & logistics software systems
• A strong passion for empirical research and for answering hard questions with data
• Ability to communicate complex concepts in easy-to-understand terminology with multiple audiences.