As clients become interested in S&OP (Sales & Operations Planning), also known as SIOP (Sales, Inventory, and Operations Planning) to get in front of customer requirements while simultaneously increasing margins and profits, executives want to know if software is required to support S&OP success. Is Software Required to Support [...]
Lisa Anderson was interviewed by Lucie Newcomb for the podcast series “Staying Global While Staying Home”. They addressed the topic of the state of the global supply chain and strategies to successfully navigate with Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP / SIOP) with an emphasis on getting a handle on demand volatility. [...]
Sales and operations planning is a dark art, and most organizations typically have a very ad-hoc process of forecasting due to its nature. But it's critical to be directionally correct with your plan. Or you might end up missing opportunities or losing customers. [...]
Predicting the Unpredictable Every client believes their demand cannot be predicted. After all, customers don't know what is going on in their end-to-end supply chain with the global supply chain chaos. Sales teams are optimistic and either forecast too much, hoping Operations will produce and store "just in case" [...]
2021 was plagued with shortages. As discussed in clients’ demand planning/ forecasting meetings, history is not representative of the future. In one example, the client experienced material shortages and couldn’t sell what customers requested, and so carrying that forecast into the New Year would deliberately carry that issue into 2022.
Clients are growing quickly. No matter the industry and company size, clients and colleagues are seeing growth. The only question is how quickly and whether they can keep up. Capacity constraints are popping up everywhere. On the logistics front, Southern California has no available space; the ports are backlogged, prices are rising [...]
I had the pleasure of representing the United States in the World Manufacturing Forum in thesession “Back to the Future: Manufacturing Beyond COVID-19“. I talked about the fact that weare at a crossroads between efficiency/ costs and resiliency/ responsiveness, how to turn that orinto an [...]
Technology is a tricky topic. On one hand, almost everyone has put technology and ERP implementations on hold due to concerns about COVID impacts and to conserve cash. On the other hand, it is the best time to gain employees' attention and focus to upgrade technology to scale the business, create a superior customer experience and deliver bottom line results.
COVID has disrupted every business. Some are growing far faster than supply can keep up while others have dropped like a rocket. Still others have almost identical dollar volume yet double the number of orders at half the order size, creating significant disruption in warehousing, shipping and transportation. [...]
Demand planning is critically important to inventory management success. Drive better inventory control, cash flow, and profitability
