Sales and operations planning (S&OP) is a collaborative and cross functional process to take decisions. It focuses on closing the gaps to enable your organization to reach the strategic ambitions you have set yourselves. For example the gap between demand and supply. To make the right decisions in your S&OP process you need the right input. This information should be fit-for-purpose, timely available, and easy to access. In supply chain, when making decisions, speed is key.
Setting up actionable S&OP insights is not as simple as it might sound. Many companies start by combining numerous datasets they have available. Quite often this results in an overload of information. A better approach is to start with a clear view of the planning decisions you need to support, and have a critical look at what data is really needed and relevant to support those decisions.
Focused and fit-for-purpose dashboards are key to enable S&OP decision making in your organization. A good S&OP dashboard combines the following elements:
Companies increasingly outsource the recurrent delivery of their S&OP reporting to an external service provider. The benefits of outsourcing such a reporting service are twofold: one reliable source of truth, and no need for internal resources to spend a lot of their valuable time on generating these reports each cycle, having the information required to take decisions available within very short timeframe.
Planning Services supports companies with fast, efficient, and consistent generation of actionable insights, and enables you to spend valuable time on the core of S&OP: focused on decision making. You can refresh our reports on a monthly, weekly, or even daily basis, depending on your specific needs. We create dashboards in BI tools like Tableau, PowerBI or QlikSense, provide exception-based personalized alerts using automated analysis, and automate the S&OP/IBP slide deck generation.
Planning Services, the business process outsourcing service of EyeOn, offers robust, recurring outsourced services focused on high quality forecasting, inventory optimization, and actionable end-to-end supply chain insights. Together with you, we decide what the monthly (or weekly) service should look like and who should be involved. For multinationals often the way of working across business units and/or regions can be quite scattered, our services accelerate harmonization across all units and locations.
Want to know more? Watch the recording of the webinar here!
Or reach out to our experts Edward Versteijnen and Joost Rongen!