One of the biggest benefits of the S&OP process in my view is that it reveals and quantifies risks in your business plans, and rallies people to find solutions or at least mitigation options for those. I have recently seen a great MIT research video detailing all this. Continued…
Posted in Decision making.
Tagged with capacity, customer service, inventory, risk management, S&OP intermediate.
By Tamas Toth
– April 21, 2010
One of the weakest points of an S&OP process is to establish proper participation and input from Sales and Marketing into the plans.
Though a long journey, but this can be achieved in a way that all parties are enthusiastic and happy to collaborate. How? Read on..
Continued…
Posted in Change management, Marketing best practice, Sales best practice.
Tagged with cross-functional, implementation, KPI, marketing, sales.
By Tamas Toth
– April 19, 2010
Based on latest experience the most successful S&OP is a business process that is used to continuously realign the focus, the actions and necessary resources throughout the organization in order to reach the company’s ambitions.
Let’s break down that definition what it means in detail, shall we?
Continued…
Posted in What is S&OP.
Tagged with introduction, S&OP basics, sailing.
By Tamas Toth
– March 15, 2010
In a previous entry we discussed what S&OP KPIs to use in general. Many have requested and been looking for more detail on specifically forecast related KPIs. So I will detail how to measure the quality and accuracy of a forecast, and more importantly what to do with those measures to influence people.
Continued…
Posted in Demand Planning.
Tagged with demand plan, forecast, KPI, S&OP basics.
By Tamas Toth
– October 29, 2009
Thomas Alva Edison the big innovator said once: “The real challenge in innovation was not invention – coming up with good ideas – but in making them work technically and commercially”. Similarly – according to a dutch study - disagreement and conflict in teams have a positive influence on team performance in the beginning of an innovation process, however a negative influence in the end of an innovation process.
I have also seen at several companies that the innovation process goes well (and in isolation) in the first stages, and as soon as it has to be executed, implemented, especially regionally, teams get confused, misaligned and miss great opportunities of millions of euros.
Continued…
Posted in Marketing best practice, What is S&OP.
Tagged with cross-functional, IBP, innovation.
By Tamas Toth
– October 19, 2009
Sales and Operations Planning accelerates the sales growth due to several factors. In general as it drives better decision making and more targeted, optimal spending, it will result in a stable, sustainable long term growth.
But let’s examine the detailed drivers, what is standing behind a stable long term growth?
Continued…
Posted in What is S&OP.
Tagged with benefits, customer service, introduction, S&OP basics, sales.
By Tamas Toth
– September 21, 2009
One of the most quoted burning platforms to implement S&OP is low customer service levels. Looking at companies who have implemented an S&OP process there is a long lasting effect of continuous increase in service levels. Let’s look in detail what mechanisms work in the background.
Continued…
Posted in S&OP Theory.
Tagged with benefits, cost saving, customer service, implementation, introduction, sales.
By Tamas Toth
– September 17, 2009
Companies that run great S&OP processes always will mention several groups of benefits. S&OP will deliver hard benefits in the area of Turnover growth, Profit margin and Cashflow. Besides that you can recognize S&OP believers if they talk about the soft benefits of teamwork, accountability, motivation and control.
Even if you read around these benefits seem to be indisputable, but there are only few details and examples around. We have set out to start a series to change that and get first hand experience. But first let’s discuss what topics we should talk about and feel free to chip in through the comments if you notice any additions that we should cover.
Posted in What is S&OP.
Tagged with benefits, cashflow, cost saving, cross-functional, decision making, inventory, motivation, S&OP basics.
By Tamas Toth
– September 9, 2009
Different stages of S&OP processes through an example
Think of S&OP as the way of steering a big sailboat (your business) to reach the harbour (your target) before the nightfall (end of year).
You will race other boats on your way (competitors), you have limited food and water (budgets), most probably there are dangerous waters ahead (crisis situation), even technical failures can occur underway. So what is approaches are out there?
Continued…
Posted in What is S&OP.
Tagged with cross-functional, decision making, S&OP basics, sailing, systems.
By Tamas Toth
– September 4, 2009
Let me share a story with you. I was taking a client to visit an FMCG company’s well running S&OP and came across an interesting mindset. People were telling us: “We are absolutely relaxed about our targets.” and “We are not stressing or even looking at the next 3 months”.
We were puzzled. Read on what we found out, what was happening in the background.
Continued…
Posted in Sales best practice.
Tagged with cross-functional, customer plan, decision making, IBP, motivation, S&OP intermediate.
By Tamas Toth
– September 4, 2009
