Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP)

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SCM Services

Balance between supply and demand

Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) is the key process that helps balance supply and demand while achieving a company's financial and operational goals. If supply and demand are out of balance, there will either be excess inventory because available products are not being purchased, or customers will migrate because products in demand are not available. Both have a direct impact on the company's earnings and financial strength - not to mention possible recourse claims.

An efficient, cross-divisional S&OP process offers many advantages in this context:

Faster response to market changes: Changes are identified earlier and the integrated process enables a faster coordinated response. The effect of risks on the company can thus be mitigated.

Improved communication and collaboration: Cross-departmental communication and collaboration, e.g. between sales, marketing, production and purchasing, is intensified and, above all, operationalized. Silo thinking is overcome and a common understanding of corporate goals is achieved.

Optimized inventory management: Companies are helped to optimize their inventories by reducing safety stock and lowering storage costs while increasing product availability.

Improved capacity planning: Better utilization of production capacities and resources is enabled by linking production planning more closely to market demand and identifying potential bottlenecks or overcapacities at an early stage.

Decision support: S&OP provides the basis for analysis and flexible simulations for decision making at all levels of the organization, from executive management to operational teams.

To control my planning process, I need an S&OP Control Tower that shows me all requirements and capacities. The control tower makes it possible to identify anomalies in demand and bottlenecks in procurement at a glance and provides the ideal basis for taking action.

The S&OP process at a glance

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Process optimization

The individual process is a central challenge of the S&OP approach. From an organizational point of view, this process must be viewed, designed and coordinated across departments. With our RPV method (RPV = Rapid Process Visualization), we are able to quickly bring transparency to complex processes and visualize them clearly. In this way, we lay the foundation for a common understanding of all employees involved in the end-to-end process, which is of great importance for the success of a corresponding project.

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Implementation

The complexity of an S&OP process cannot be mastered without dedicated tools. Therefore, a software solution (not Excel!) is needed that is capable of mapping the complex supply chain interrelationships end-to-end down to the underlying product or bill of material structures.

It must also be possible to run through short-term changes in the form of simulations, which is only possible with response times in near real time. For final decision-making, it is necessary to create and compare different scenarios. In view of the fast-moving business environment, planning processes and software solutions must therefore also remain agile and flexible so that they can react to changes. We have some of the leading providers of corresponding planning software in our portfolio. We implement the software, assist with change management and provide support during subsequent operation.

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Data integration

The availability and quality of data are critical for accurate forecasting and decision-making in the S&OP process. Usually, the data is located in the underlying ERP system of a company. The problem, however, is that additional sources always have to be connected, be it other central systems or other ERP systems of national companies or even suppliers or customers, in order to achieve the highest possible level of integration, even beyond the company itself. With our colleagues from the Data Engineering team, there are no technical limits to what we can do. As long as data is available digitally, we can get it integrated and harmonized.

Forecasting / Optimization

Integrating forecasting models based on artificial intelligence or machine learning can improve the S&OP process. However, forecasting demand is a complex task that is influenced by numerous factors such as market conditions, seasonal fluctuations, and geopolitical events. Forecasting models and methods must therefore be properly parameterized and continuously reviewed and updated to achieve greater accuracy and responsiveness. Our Data Science team has extensive experience in this area and integrates or parameterizes the models so that optimal results are possible.

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Supply Chain Planning & Simulation

Recent years have shown how complex and vulnerable supply chains are - especially when disruptions suddenly occur. See how you can make the right decisions quickly with the help of multidimensional planning and simulation using concrete examples in our 5-minute demo: