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In my recent Mea Culpa post, I mentioned my prior work on Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP), and the importance of leadership. Leadership and S&OP? I share research, observations, and insights. I shared this after interviewing 150 companies on their S&OP processes while at AMR Research.
I spent time this week completing reference calls on the use of S&OP technologies. Eerily the case studies sound the same as the ones heard when I completed S&OPresearch in 2004. Eerily the case studies sound the same as the ones heard when I completed S&OPresearch in 2004.
What’s missing? In May 2025, one in seven home-purchase agreements fell through resulting in the cancellation of 56,000 purchase contracts. Each is attempting to slather AI on today’s offering: this fueling a hype cycle for agentic AI. Technology can change or even improve work. It is a landgrab of sorts.
I wrote my first report on Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) while sitting on the floor in the Atlanta airport in 2005 when I was an AMR Research analyst. The model in Figure 1 became the foundational model for the Gartner S&OP model. Sales and Operations Maturity Model from 2005-2008. Figures 2 and 3.
” Followed by “How are you organized, and what defines functional excellence? And, how do you tie functional excellence to corporate value?” Companies became less clear on the definition of supply chain excellence and how to implement decision support technologies. This gap grew over the last decade.
I wanted to say, “You let the consultants influence you to buy the wrong technologies based on IT standardization. As I sorted through years of research on the topic, I came up with five reasons: holistic thinking, planning system satisfaction, over-dependence on spreadsheets, rise in complexity and organizational alignment.
In the research, we find that deploying an outside-in model always beats an inside-out model, reducing process and data latency while improving the organization’s ability to make decisions at the speed of business. The evolution of S&OP to IBP increased process latency in 70% of companies. Lack of executive buy-in.
by Lori Smith Can the S&OP process be done without technology? So what technologies are today’s supply chain teams using to support the critical S&OP process? It never ceases to surprise me when I hear how many enterprises entrust a mission-critical task to the desktop spreadsheet software Excel®.
GEON Performance Solutions purchases plastic pellets and add plastic compounders to make products of different strength, resilience, and flexibility. The roots of IBP are in sales & operations planning (S&OP). S&OP is usually a month-long cross functional process that involves five steps.
Ed argued that instead of buying new packaging equipment that we should work with R&D to have a base flavor and add the color and flavoring at the head of the machine. As a result, we shelved Ed’s idea. Testing Ed’s idea was beyond my circle of control. Strength in S&OP.
Each executive has a different perspective on the definition of supply chain excellence, but they are never discussed and aligned. Let’s focus first on John. His organization purchased an advanced planning technology from well-known best of breed provider, and the implementation should have been successful, but it was not.
Let’s Start With Clear Definitions My inbox is full. I am a researcher. Let’s have fun! Let’s start with the definitions: Graph AI uses Machine Learning on graph-based technology to understand the relationships between variables to drive insights. Many of today’s solutions include Narrow AI.
In the last 30 years S&OP improved performance in many businesses. However, S&OP has not yet substantially delivered on its ultimate promise of enterprise wide resource management, rolling financial forecasting and strategy deployment. Worse, overall S&OP development and progress seems to have stalled.
Founded in 2000, Steelwedge was an innovator in Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) and was an early provider of cloud solutions for supply chain. ” The company’s press release rhetoric is bullish. ” I struggled to understand how a company focused just on S&OP could be viable.
Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) has been around for three decades. Many pundits, however, believe the S&OP process, as originally conceived, needs to change. What’s going on? ”[2] Think back 30 years to around the time the S&OP concept was first developed. They are: 1.
Let’s start with a definition. After Manugistics, I worked for two analyst firms; Gartner and AMR Research, and I continued to question if the extended ERP platform that included SCP delivered greater value. In early 2014, using the principles of open research, we at Supply Chain Insights hosted a study on Supply Chain Planning.
They were born from well-intentioned, bright professors from great schools – Boston College, Carnegie Mellon, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT )– in operations research. SmartOps was purchased by SAP. SAP released an S&OP solution using HANA in 2011. However, the picture is not that rosy.
They also brought me and my colleagues at AMR Research stuffed Llamas. With the purchase of i2 by JDA, and Logictools by IBM, manufacturing companies serious about network design started looking for a company, with a well-established community, that was more serious about network design. “What a crazy name! The gap is tough.
The research that I have conducted has enabled me to look at this holistically. When I left AMR Research I invested over 400K in building a database of supply chain financial ratios to correlate supply chain results. After three years of research, I have just refined the methodology to start to pull the trends. (I
While MRP and S&OP were defined as early as the 1980s, these provided rough cut analysis at the aggregate level, nowhere near the level of detail that is possible today. Now they want to deploy an S&OP process. I studied Industrial Engineering and Operations Research focusing on Optimization Theory.
Q: Is it only inventory disrupting the agility resulting from inaccurate forecasts by S&OP? Is it S&OP? Also, invest time in improving the cross-functional processes of revenue management, Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) and Supplier Development. Tips on Executing Agility Well.
But research suggests the most widespread and stinging criticism of IBP was that it was just mature Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) by any other name. These critics sensed a sinister “rebranding” ploy designed to get companies to purchase technology and services they already own but perhaps have not fully implemented.
There is a lot of evidence that S&OP is hard to implement and get right. And when S&OP is implemented it often stalls, doesn’t make enough progress and doesn’t deliver enough value. Maybe at the start of the S&OP project executives buy in and employees are still eager.
The focus is on the role of supply chain finance in driving supply chain excellence. Next year’s conference will be on September 8th-11th in Franklin, TN, south of Nashville, TN. The design of the conference includes tours of several modern warehouses and centers of excellence. The Role of the Budget in S&OP.
Pricing Structure Affordable pricing, with annual access to purchased courses and practical resources through Pro Plan. Its sole focus on supply chain management makes it an excellent choice for anyone serious about developing specialized skills in this field. A general platform covering various subjects, including supply chain.
I could write a blog about each story, but let’s save that for coffee.) Let’s take a discussion from my DM on LinkedIn from Ryan. ” My response, “Sorry Ryan, the research does not support that increased digitalization brought unprecedented levels of connectivity. I am researcher.
According to recent research , the competition for skilled supply chain talent is intensifying, driving up hiring and retention costs and putting strain on traditional workforce models. Customer Portal Partner Portal Contact John Galt Solutions Atlas AI-driven SaaS platform that connects and orchestrates your entire supply chain.
They can adjust quantities and generate supplier replenishment orders in PDF or Excel as needed. The system can now automatically receive all approved Purchase Orders so receipts can be reconciled against orders. and Master of Engineering degrees in Operations Research and Industrial Engineering from Cornell University.
Importance Versus Effectiveness of Demand and S&OP Planning Solutions. The third issue is the lack of understanding that global processes–to maximize the economies of scale in transportation and material buying–need strong governance. So you might think, sometimes, you’d have better luck than this in Vegas.
Whether you''re a manufacturing company in China, a sourcing agent in London or a world''s leading company in Silicon Valley, we''re all in a global supply chain networks. That''s why we ask our experts a very simple question " How to improve the operational efficiency in global supply chain?
Two years at Gartner Group , six years at AMR Research (now Gartner), two years at Altimeter Group and three years as the founder of Supply Chain Insights. Each year, we do a study–we term it the Voice of Supply Chain User – on user satisfaction with today’s systems. I have been an analyst for over a decade.
Unlike many research studies, it is a panel that is known. The research is a study of large manufacturers. Buying these solutions is far more complicated than is represented in a simple four-box quadrant. I struggle to find both in today’s market. We have validated each respondent as a user of supply chain planning.
One retail sector that witnessed a dramatic rise in online purchases during the pandemic was the grocery sector. Analysts from Chicory note, “The grocery shopper’s path to purchase from digital to in-store and other online environments has always been obscure.”[2] The Omnichannel Consumer.
The bane of e-commerce is the large percentage of purchased items that are returned. She reports, “The share of online purchases that are returned averages 30% or higher, depending on the category, three times the rate in physical stores.”[2] Get Consumers to Keep What They Purchase. of sales, or $428 billion. .”
Executive, after executive, lament, “They have purchased many technologies and sponsored many projects to reduce inventories, but they are not seeing results.” Let’s take a closer look to see what progress looks like. As a result, buyers should buy based on today’s functionality. These efforts are not enough.
Has your company ever suffered problems with, implemented, or even considered implementing a sales and operations (S&OP) planning process? If so, a few minutes of online research will reveal what you probably suspected deep down all along—that there are real risks involved, which can stand in the way of promised benefits.
In the age of the Amazon B2C, buy-it-now, get-it-now landscape, B2B buyers are finding themselves also wanting the quick and easy shopping experience B2C companies offer, and some actually excel at. Corporate buying decisions are being made by a generation accustomed to quick turnaround purchases they experience as online consumers.
As we walked, I reflected and kept asking Scott, “How can we optimize outcomes if companies are not clear on what defines excellence?” Sean strongly believed that the sales group knew what the customers wanted and that tight supply chain integration to sales information would drive excellent results. At the first meeting. I listened.
As we walked, I reflected and kept asking Scott, “How can we optimize outcomes if companies are not clear on what defines excellence?” Sean strongly believed that the sales group knew what the customers wanted and that tight supply chain integration to sales information would drive excellent results. At the first meeting. I listened.
At the event, James Rice, MIT, spoke on innovation, and his reflections on Clayton Christensen’s 1997 classic business book, the Innovators Dilemma. Christensen’s concept is that businesses will reject innovation based on the fact that the customer cannot currently use the innovation delaying the adoption of great ideas.
Today hurricane Nate’s north winds are pushing against the bayous of Louisiana. Today’s demand processes are inside-out. In today’s architectures, there is no place to put outside-in data like VMI, Point of Sale (POS) or rating/review data. Today’s demand management processes have many issues.
Many companies who have gone down the sales & operations planning (S&oP) route over the past few years are now on the threshold of the next phase: to make demand and supply planning financially relevant and to implement scenario planning. The Netherlands is far from an exception in terms of Excel use.
…for 8:00 AM strategy meeting(s) with clients.) To use the Barnes example, in this blog post, let’s focus on simplicity. Let’s start with a definition. Companies with a deep focus on Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) will often default to this definition. What is integrated planning?
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