S&OP is a process that must evolve in line with business requirements as well as any product or portfolio changes.

While many organisations have been making investments in their planning tools, best-in-class planning relies on cross-functional integration, short planning cycles and advanced-analytics enablement supported by a high degree of automation. To have one platform, one system, one true data line that everyone trusts and believes in is helpful from an operational plan perspective. It’s important to understand and agree on what your assumptions and drivers are.

Get data on the right dashboard

Putting the right KPIs and metrics into place is a giant step toward S&OP success. Each organisation will have different needs depending on their high-level goals. When these KPIs and metrics are established, it’s easier to manage improvement, participation, and accuracy, as well as ensuring that you’re heading in the right direction in your decision-making. Meaningful, shared, self-service dashboards supported by trusted data, are the backbone of next generation S&OP. Unless planners from sales, finance, supply chain, and beyond are seeing the same data at the same time, the process is hampered. Dashboards need to be housed in a connected, cloud-based platform for always-on access that inform worldwide processes. This also provides an easily accessible information source when you need to present findings to executives or give them direct access to the dashboards.

Make sure you can ask “what-if?”

Historically organisations have waited for something to happen before responding. But leading organisations plan for multiple eventualities to enable an agile response. An effective what-if scenario can make a huge difference in the organisation’s ability to respond to disruptions, which happen often in every supply chain. Explore options with robust analytics and scenario planning to calculate the impact on the business in real-time, supported by empowered planners who can make decisions quickly in times of crisis. While analysis offers insights, the planner has the experience to make informed decisions when it counts.

Don’t forget finance

Even though finance has their own spot in the process, some supply chain planners may be reticent to loop them in until later because of the potential impact of their feedback on already-established product, demand, and supply plans. However, finance is a critical piece of successful S&OP given today’s accelerated pace of business. Run S&OP in tandem with financial planning, not sequentially, to make financial implications clear in real-time, allowing you to take action to address gaps in the plan while there is still time to do so. And, with so many moving parts, it’s essential to focus on the changes that will make the biggest difference. S&OP should be positioned alongside key financial planning processes and not just trued up on a monthly and quarterly basis.

Take action to drive demand

Involve sales and marketing to actively monitor and drive demand from within the S&OP process. It’s not enough to include sales forecasts and invite representatives from sales and marketing. The most effective S&OP takes a business-level perspective, looking for opportunities to create synergies, increase demand, and optimise supply. With forecasting, you’re still being reactive. You should be taking steps to shape demand. S&OP brings together what the sales and marketing teams are doing in terms of pricing, promotions, and incentives. Next generation S&OP lets you game-plan those efforts against the supply chain’s ability to produce and deliver, so you can shape demand and eliminate supply constraints, giving the business the freedom to grow.

For further information, including the six phases of S&OP for optimised planning, download S&OP guide.