Sales & Operations Planning
S&OP aligns strategy, finance, supply chain, operations, sales, marketing, and product development/engineering on longer-term operating decisions.
What is S&OP?
S&OP is one of the few structured, truly cross-functional processes at most companies.
Effective S&OP ties executive decisions with operational activities. It creates a common view of future operations, and it holds people accountable for variances that impact the bottom line.
A mature S&OP process drives alignment and decision-making over a time horizon of three to 24+ months on strategic demand and supply plans, related policies, and significant investments.
The executive S&OP meeting is the capstone of this structured process, which features a defined set of monthly meetings.
Where Does S&OP Fit?
Where Synergic Technologies have helped to implement S&OP with customers, direct feedback has been:
Food Manufacturer: “Achieved 3x growth in Australia over the last 6 months ... in the middle of Covid!”
Sporting Good Manufacturer: “Greater than 50% reduction in Work-In-Progress inventory holdings and working capital” and “better stability and predictability across the business”.
Benefits of S&OP:
Research from Gartner and Aberdeen show the ‘typical’ benefits from implementing S&OP include:
2-5% revenue improvement
10-15% improvement in working capital (Impacting inventory, payables, receivables and ability to covert cash to run the business)
15-20% better forecast accuracy (Impacts the accuracy of the plan, therefore reduces re-work and waste as well as working capital and lost sales)
10-50% increase in service and delivery performance (Drives customer satisfaction and brand loyalty)
15-20% improvement in NPD introduction fill rates (improves time-to value for new products)
It also provides a mechanism which allows the Executive to ‘work on’ the business (rather than ‘in it’) and systematises IP within the business, as well as driving improved execution of the business strategy.
The Typical S&OP Cycle:
What’s on offer:
Processes and best practice templates embedded in a system for:
Robust Demand Plan from the sales team forecast down to SKU level
Reassurance of a Supply Plan with inventory and production calculated
Commercial Plan including Forecasting Revenue, Working Capital
Centralised management of key supply chain master data
Asking “What if” and testing scenario plans
Executive Dashboard