The urgent need for supply chain resilience is becoming increasingly apparent in today’s volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) world, so it’s time to take action. In my view, IBP is a great place to start. But what should you bear in mind to ensure that the implementation is successful?
S&OP in the past years has been demystified and has become a mature process with many successful implementations. Companies reap the benefits in terms of higher revenues and margins and improved supply chain performance. We also know that getting there is not straightforward, mainly because S&OP is tactical and cross-functional. Most companies...
“S&OP helps us to seize growth opportunities” – Sabine Zijderlaan Typical S&OP topics: Scaling capacity up and down proactively Responding to expectations faster Providing transparency into workload & priorities Agreeing on when to stimulate or hold back customer demand Aligning execution with strategy
Many articles have been written about successful S&OP implementations. Often these articles only over content or context, hardly ever they cover both. But a successful S&OP demands an integral approach. Only in that case Sales & Operations Planning leads to practical actions and results. Quite similar to playing on chess on multiple boards. A...
As always, this year’s IBP Boost Camp was based on the concept of “learning by doing”: hardly any PowerPoints but getting to work yourself in a realistic but virtual environment. Participants from very diverse companies including Albert Heijn, FrieslandCampina, Nexperia, Brocacef, Shimano, Stedin and Puratos tested their S&OP / IBP skills in “The...
For years now, supply chain blogs and articles have invariably begun with a statement about the changing world. There is certainly plenty going on right now, and even the causes themselves are changing. Whereas we used to be able to blame the increasing uncertainty and volatility on changing consumer behaviour, more recently the culprits have been...
For any process to work well, the people running it need to have the right skills and competencies and S&OP is no exception. Even when having done an excellent job in creating buy-in and setting-up processes and systems, S&OP will not be effective if the practitioners are not able to execute it.
With a crystal-clear objective, motivated teams, an effective process and – of course – the right resources, organizations can achieve great things. Various pharma companies have developed, gained approval for and manufactured effective vaccines against COVID-19 with unprecedented speed and on a scale that was previously considered impossible....
“Now, absolutely everyone’s convinced of the value of our new IBP process!” said the IBP manager to a client where we set up an Integrated Business Planning (IBP) process last year. This company is gaining a competitive edge by making smart choices related to market segments, customer focus, production capacity and inventory management with a...
Sales & Operations Planning is essential in organisations with supply chains of any substance. Many companies struggle with it though. A summary of do’s and don’ts. Hans van der Drift is partner with Involvation, a consultancy that focuses on supply chain management. He observes that many organisations struggle with Sales & Operations Planning...