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High Analytical reasoning90/100
The strongest signal for this role. People who score 70+ on this dimension report higher day-to-day satisfaction.
India-first salary signal — fresh-grad to senior, the cities where it pays best, and what each level is worth on the open market.
Numbers reflect open-market hires at the level shown.
Equity, bonuses, and overtime are not included. Senior-bracket numbers can rise 30–60% at top studios / tier-1 firms; smaller cities trend 20% lower than metros.
Myntra HQ (largest single employer of Merchandise Planners in India), Ajio/Reliance Digital planning team, Nykaa. E-commerce planners with JDA/RELEX proficiency reach ₹35-55L at senior level. Highest-paying city for planning roles.
Shoppers Stop, Lifestyle (Landmark Group), Westside/Tata planning teams. Aditya Birla Fashion (Pantaloons, Madura) HQ here. Mid-level planner ₹12-22L; Planning Head ₹40-70L at national retailers.
Reliance Trends planning, AJIO category planning team (some functions based here), Croma planning. Mid-level planner ₹10-20L; senior planner ₹25-40L.
Myntra and Amazon Fashion have planning teams here. Lower cost of living — ₹18L here is comparable to ₹24L in Bengaluru. Growing pool of e-commerce planning talent.
Regional retail chains (Spencer's, Heritage Fresh), some Reliance Retail planning functions. Lower salary bands vs. Bengaluru/Mumbai but significantly lower cost of living.
Regional retail chains, FMCG distributor planning, ethnic wear brand planning functions. Junior and mid-level planning roles at SME retail. Senior planning roles rarely based here — typically reporting to national HQ.
Not the brochure version. The actual block-by-block reality of the role on a typical Tuesday.
Pull overnight sell-through dashboard — check WOS by store cluster, flag any SKUs crossing replenishment threshold (WOS < 4) or markdown watch threshold (WOS > 16 with ST pace < 60%)
Weekly OTB reconciliation — update actual intake vs. plan by week, check committed vs. uncommitted OTB, flag any vendor delays shifting intake beyond the OTB week they were planned
JDA Allocation replenishment run — review system recommendations for next DC shipment, override exceptions (promotional stores, SKUs at end-of-life, DC capacity constraints), approve final allocation quantities
GMROI review with Finance — walk through category gross margin vs. plan, identify the 3 sub-categories most over/under-inventoried, align on whether a markdown or hold-replenishment recommendation goes to the Buying Head this week
Lunch — quick desk lunch during pre-season crunch; team lunch on calmer mid-season weeks
Pre-season OTB build for upcoming AW season — model intake by week, WOS target by store cluster, GMROI target by sub-category, and forward cover vs. last year's AW actuals
Markdown recommendation deck — build sell-through projection for 12 slow-moving SKUs at 20% vs. 30% markdown depth, quantify units cleared and GMROI impact, prepare for Buying Head sign-off tomorrow
Coordinate with DC team on next week's intake schedule — confirm space for 3,200 units of AW intake arriving Friday, flag potential conflict with 1,800 units of SS clearance that need to ship out first
ASP trend analysis — week-on-week blended ASP for top 5 sub-categories; identify where ASP is declining (markdown erosion) and where it is holding (healthy full-price mix); flag to Planning Director
Cost, time, and what each path actually buys you in the hiring market.
Strongest signal · highest ceiling
Fastest paid hire route
Cheapest · portfolio is your degree
Core skills you must own, the support skills you'll grow into, and the tools you'll have open all day.
People already doing this work — and the rooms (subreddits, Discords, Slacks) where they hang out.
Gunjan Soni
CEO · Myntra
V. Subramaniam
Former COO / Supply Chain Head · Reliance Retail
Kinjal Shah
VP Planning & Allocation · Shoppers Stop (former)
NIFT MFM Planning Cohort — Myntra / Reliance Retail
Merchandise Planning & Category Planning professionals · Myntra, Reliance Retail, Shoppers Stop
Retailers Association of India (RAI)
Industry body + conferencesRAI's Retail Leadership Summit and Retail Technology Summit are the primary networking venues for senior planning, supply chain, and operations heads at national Indian retailers. Useful for those targeting Planning Director and VP roles.
APICS India Chapter (now ASCM)
Professional body + CPIM certificationASCM (formerly APICS) runs CPIM (Certified in Planning and Inventory Management) certification globally — the closest thing to a professional credential for merchandise planners. India chapters in Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru. CPIM is increasingly listed on Myntra and Reliance Retail senior planning JDs.
Institute of Business Forecasting & Planning (IBF)
Professional body + CBF certificationIBF runs the Certified Business Forecasting Professional (CBF) credential — relevant for demand planning and S&OP-oriented planners at retailers and FMCG companies. Growing recognition in Indian retail and consumer goods planning teams.
NIFT Alumni Network (for planning track)
LinkedIn + Alumni chaptersNIFT alumni dominate the senior merchandising and planning functions at Myntra, Shoppers Stop, Reliance Retail, and Lifestyle. The alumni network is the primary referral channel for planning roles at these employers — more effective than LinkedIn cold applications.
IMAGES Retail Magazine / RAI Retail Study
Trade publication + Annual benchmark reportIMAGES Retail covers Indian retail KPIs, store-opening data, and category performance benchmarks — the standard industry read for planning professionals tracking competitive retail performance, category growth rates, and inventory turn benchmarks by format.
The traps real practitioners wish someone had named for them in year one. Read these before you commit, not after.
Treating Excel OTB models as the ceiling of planning sophistication
Setting markdown triggers too late
Reporting sell-through % without GMROI context
Not loading the promotional calendar into JDA before the replenishment run
Conflating WOS with forward cover
Books, longreads, and references practitioners come back to.
Fashion Buying (Retail Merchandise Management chapters)
by Rosemary Varley
Retail Management: A Strategic Approach
by Barry Berman & Joel Evans
Demand-Driven Forecasting: A Structured Approach to Forecasting
by Charles Chase
Supply Chain Management: Strategy, Planning, and Operation
by Sunil Chopra & Peter Meindl
IMAGES Retail Magazine
by IMAGES Group
Blue Yonder / JDA Luminate Documentation
by Blue Yonder Group
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Operations
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Operations
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Operations
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Operations
CSR Managers in India operationalise the mandate created by Section 135 of the Companies Act 2013 — the world's first statutory CSR law — which requires companies above a specified threshold to spend 2% of average net profit (3 preceding years) on Schedule VII activities. At TCS Foundation, Infosys Foundation, Tata Trusts, Wipro Foundation, RIL CSR, and ITC's social initiatives, this means building multi-year programmes in education, livelihood, health, environment, and rural development; selecting and monitoring NGO implementation partners; conducting impact assessments; and filing the mandatory CSR-2 annual return with MCA. The role spans both strategy (Schedule VII alignment, board CSR committee secretarial) and execution (budget disbursement, audit coordination, BRSR disclosure). Unlike philanthropy roles, Indian CSR Managers work inside a compliance-and-governance framework — impact without audit trails and proper disclosure is a legal liability.
Operations
Agile Coaches operate at the organizational layer above Scrum Masters — they coach portfolios of teams, Scrum Masters, Product Owners, Engineering Managers, and C-suite leaders on agile ways of working at scale. In India, the role is concentrated in three clusters: Agile CoEs inside IT services giants (Infosys Agile Academy, TCS Pace Port, Wipro Lab45, Capgemini Invent), product unicorns that are scaling delivery models (Razorpay, Flipkart, CRED, Swiggy, Zepto), and SAFe/LeSS partner consulting firms (Agile42, Accenture SolutionsIQ, Valtech, Thoughtworks India, Scaled Agile partner network). Day-to-day work is running PI Planning events for 50-500 people, facilitating Lean Portfolio Management sessions, coaching leadership on Cynefin-informed decision-making in complex domains, and reducing ART-level dependencies via dependency mapping and system demos. The most effective Indian Agile Coaches hold SAFe SPC, ICP-ACC (ICAgile Certified Professional in Agile Coaching), or CSP-SM combined with deep delivery experience — not just certifications acquired in classroom weekends.
Operations
Agronomists in India bridge crop science and commercial outcomes — advising farmers on soil fertility, pest and disease management, irrigation scheduling, and variety selection for agri-input companies (Tata-Rallis, UPL, Syngenta India, Bayer CropScience, Coromandel, IFFCO) and agtech platforms (DeHaat, Cropin, Ninjacart, BharatAgri). On the input side, the role is equal parts field science and sales support: running demonstration plots, validating product claims in trial conditions, and translating research into farmer-ready language. On the agtech side, agronomists build crop advisory engines, interpret satellite NDVI and weather data (Skymet, Cropin SmartFarm), and train field agents who reach millions of smallholders. Entry is typically M.Sc. Agriculture with agronomy specialisation from a state agricultural university (PAU Ludhiana, TNAU Coimbatore, PJTSAU Hyderabad, GBPUAT Pantnagar, UAS Bangalore), often followed by ICAR-JRF or an ARS-NET attempt for those pursuing the research track.