Men's Apparel Inventory, Returns and Contribution Recovery Lead

The mandate

The defined problem is that men's apparel contribution deterioration cannot be reliably separated into assortment, inventory and return drivers. The consultant will diagnose agreed cohorts and test a bounded intervention pack. This is not a request to manage the category indefinitely or promise savings before the source evidence is reconciled.

Deliverables are a contribution driver bridge, inventory-and-return evidence register and tested recovery playbook. Each intervention must identify its expected mechanism, operating owner and possible adverse effect. The bridge must keep selling price, support, returns and inventory consequences distinct so one improvement is not credited repeatedly through overlapping measures.

Apparel contribution diagnosis runs for four months, beginning 19 October 2026 and concluding 18 February 2027. The first accepted output, due 23 November, establishes the reconciled contribution baseline. Milestone two on 11 January delivers tested driver hypotheses and the intervention pilot. Milestone three on 18 February supplies pilot outcomes, revised options and internal transfer. Three focused working days weekly are required.

Acceptance is by the category sponsor and nominated finance and operations owners. They must reproduce cohort contribution, trace selected return and inventory effects and apply the playbook to a fresh case. Pilot findings must separate demand shifts from intervention impact. A valid negative finding is acceptable; an unsupported claim of financial recovery is not.

The sponsor provides authorised product, inventory, return and contribution extracts with nominated merchandising contacts. Bengaluru is primary with planned operating workshops. Daily trading, partner contract renegotiation and warehouse redesign are excluded. Additional categories or materially different fulfilment models require scope approval before analysis expands beyond the stated project fee.

What you will own

• Reconcile selected apparel cohorts to net contribution, separating price, support, return and inventory effects so the baseline exposes the real financial driver.
• Classify return and inventory hypotheses through source evidence, distinguishing customer fit, assortment and execution issues rather than assigning every loss to one convenient cause.
• Build intervention options with operating dependencies and downside effects, identifying which choice can be tested reversibly before broader commercial commitments are made.
• Design pilot measures that avoid double counting between reduced returns and improved contribution, retaining comparable baseline cohorts and known demand differences.
• Test the playbook with merchandising and operating users, observing whether fresh cases can be analysed without private adjustments to the calculation logic.
• Analyse pilot findings honestly, preserving inconclusive hypotheses and documenting the evidence required before a wider intervention could responsibly be recommended.
• Transfer the driver bridge and maintenance register through independent user execution, obtaining ownership of unresolved source gaps and ongoing category decisions.

Candidate qualifications

• Show hands-on category analytics or commercial finance work in men's apparel or comparable fashion cohorts. Explain a contribution reconciliation and the source distinction that changed the interpretation of performance.
• Demonstrate inventory and return-driver judgement grounded in actual product and operating evidence. Candidates should describe a hypothesis rejected because aggregate reporting concealed a more specific cause.
• Provide a tested intervention with clear measures and limits. Explain how demand or selection effects were separated, including an outcome that did not support the original recovery claim.
• Evidence consulting acceptance and internal transfer, with fresh users reproducing calculations and interpreting a new case. Show how scope expansion was controlled without quietly becoming the category's daily trading team.
• Demonstrate careful handling of sensitive commercial records and practical knowledge of category economics. The project does not confer contract or warehouse authority. Candidates should explain how an apparent return improvement could still worsen net value, how the adverse effect was tested and why a lower return percentage alone could not establish accepted recovery. Show how a new product cohort was processed after transfer when its return pattern differed from the pilot. Candidates should explain the unchanged baseline method, the hypothesis that needed new evidence and the point at which the case exceeded the playbook's accepted coverage.

Application

Applications for this mandate are received in one way only: through the India Board Terminal's application process. It is automated end to end. Your Executive Passport travels to the mandate holder in its confidential form, your answers to the three questions below are read before anything else in your file, and every stage that follows is recorded on your applications page.

There is no address to write to and no intermediary to call. The mandate holder reads what the Terminal delivers and nothing else, which is what keeps the process the same for every applicant and keeps your name out of it until you release it. Applications close on 11 October 2026. Mandate reference PCT-CON-2026-IND-15.