Whatever the reasons, we can’t seem to keep up with the panic caused by items disappearing off the shelves. It’s like Black Friday all year round, except people are fighting over baby formula, toilet paper, or bags of flour. As a company, what can you possibly do to avoid the next shortage being your product? 

What is Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP)? 

A general understanding of both terms is required to understand the evolution of Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) to Integrated Business Planning (IBP). In our article Why Do Sales And Operations Planning Projects Fail? we already had a look into the definition of S&OP and the most likely obstacles for a successful implementation. In the following, a short re-cap is given about the definition of S&OP, and in addition, a brief look into the origins and the development of S&OP throughout the decades. 

For complex supply chain networks in a VUCA world, expertise in supply chain planning is key to meet demand most efficiently and reliably possible. It is essential for a competitive advantage. Suppose you do not have this expertise in-house. In that case, supply chain planning as a service can be a good alternative by utilizing the expertise of specialized data scientists to increase the quality of your forecasts. 

As supply chains are becoming increasingly more complex, managed services are gaining importance as this allows businesses to profit from expertise in those fields they need it, as they need it. Analytics demands will grow with increasing complexity, and managed services enable a business to focus on their core objectives, scale up and down as necessary while receiving support – ongoing or project-based – as they need it. Today, we're looking at a project in Inventory Management as a Service that we have implemented at one of our customers. 

With the advancement and widespread use of the Internet, there has been an astronomical increase in both the number of data sources and the amount of data generated from each source.  

The main aim of the digitalization of supply chain management is to simplify the management of the complex, interconnected processes of the supply chain. Moreover, for the digitalization of tactical decision-making, a digital model of the decision-making process is necessary. This is because every digital technology runs on rules, algorithms, and frameworks, learned or discovered. 

For a long time, supply chain specialists have been dependent on traditional forecasting models and techniques to estimate demand for their goods and services. Both the digital transformation and the fourth industrial revolution –industry 4.0– are advancing rapidly. This has a fundamental influence on the way human beings live and work. The introduction of digital identifiers and the internet of things (IoT) produced a huge amount of data. One of the main impacts of this situation is that supply chain management decision-making is increasingly driven by data instead of experience. However, the traditional strategies and methods used in the different parts of the supply chain impose many constraints that prevent gaining full advantage of data. 

All supply chains are lagging behind their optimal performance. This is what we call the supply chain performance gap. With the first nine articles of this series, we analyzed the issues of Supply Chains lagging behind their potential. Today we will close the journey and ask ourselves what the characteristics of a high-performing Supply Chain are and how we can make a difference. In 2016 the magazine Inbound Logistics asked several CEOs and Supply Chain executives: "What are the characteristics of a great supply chain?". These are the success factors, as well as possible reasons for failure. 

Join Dr. Christoph Kilger and Dr. Boris Reuter as they discuss the supply chain performance gap, and where you can start closing it. Most businesses collect large amounts of data, yet supply chain analytics doesn't always translate into concrete measures that are executed. How can you start digital execution management that leads to real results?

While most supply chain executives agree that Sales and Operations Planning is vital for ensuring supply chain efficiency, many companies struggle to implement and conduct the process successfully. In the following, we will discuss the most common pitfalls of implementing S&OP, the steps needed to ensure proper execution, and the benefits a smooth S&OP process offers.