Sales and Operations Planning Processes
A well designed and executed sales and operations planning (S&OP) process can provide the structure, data, and stakeholder involvement necessary to link the front and back ends of all a company's businesses, including year–over–year financial productivity, positioned inventory investment, distribution and transportation network refinement, and customer/channel profitability execution.
Because the implementation of sales and operations planning often involves cultural change, SCE typically begins by educating internal teams on the value of — and approach to — sales and operations planning and evaluating the fit between the S&OP process and ERP platforms, supply chain functions and finance. We then prepare for implementation by structuring the content of inputs and outputs, assigning responsibilities and creating a detailed monthly S&OP process. The process then is piloted with a product family and new product families are integrated as the process rolls out. Once in place, we work with internal teams to critique and refine the process for continuous improvement.
