Sales Forecasting Management Forum--Executive Roundtable University of Tennessee (UTK) Executive Director Paul Dittman, Member Companies and Marketing & Logistics Department Professors
Tom Mentzer, Mark Moon,
Ken Kahn September 5-7, 2007 Knoxville Marriott
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Previous Webcast 5/8 --
Best Practices Leadership Forum -- Sales and Operations Planning for Integrated Business Management
George Palmatier, Principal,
Oliver Wight Consultants
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
10am Pacific, 1pm Eastern
10:00 AM - 11:00 AM PDT
View Recorded Webcast

Previous Webcast 4/3 --
Best Practices Leadership Forum -- How to Extend SAP for effective Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP)
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
10am Pacific, 1pm Eastern
Mr. Padman Ramankutty, CEO, Intrigosys, LLC., former CEO and Founder, Bristlecone, Inc.
View Recorded Webcast

Previous Webcast 2/27 --
Best Practices Leadership Forum --S&OP Best Practices:
A Case Study
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
1pm Eastern, 12noon Central,
10am Pacific
Dr. Chris Gopal, Partner,
Deloitte Consulting and former VP Operations Strategy, Dell, Inc.
View Webcast Presentation

Steelwedge Momentum:
Three New S&OP Clients

Spansion, the largest company exclusively focused on Flash
memory solutions.

EDS, a leading global technology
services company delivering
business solutions to its clients.

Honeywell International Inc.
a diversified, technology and manufacturing company,
serving customers worldwide.

Industry Blogs
Here are the Industry Blogs that
we watch, and you might want to:

www.crmblog.org
www.supplychainer.com
www.andyonenterprisesoftware.com
www.siliconvalleywatcher.com
blogs.ittoolbox.com/crm
blogs.ittoolbox.com/supplychain
www.vics.org/blog

Ten Important Questions about S&OP:

Steelwedge VP Business Development Chris Givens Talks About Collaborative Sales & Operations Planning

1. PEP:   S&OP has been around for 25 years, but it seems to be a hot topic. Why?
   CG:     While the vision and value proposition for S&OP is not new, and has always been compelling, it has taken awhile for enabling technology to catch up with the vision. Collaboration, workflow and performance management solutions combined with a good ERP backbone, and optimization engines, have provided the fundamental building blocks for helping to make S&OP a feasible reality.
   
   
2. PEP:   Don't the enterprise software systems like SAP and Oracle have S&OP built in?
   CG:     While enterprise software systems provide a strong base of enterprise transaction data and more recently Advanced Planning and Scheduling Solutions, they are still missing the flexibility to support collaboration, workflow and performance management tools needed to enable S&OP. Additionally, ERP systems lack the flexibility, functional depth that best of breed solutions provide.
   
   
3. PEP:   Does S&OP connect ERP to CRM?
   CG:     The fundamental objective of S&OP is to create a cross-functional profit-optimized enterprise plan that matches supply with demand. In order to achieve this objective it is essential to connect the inputs and outputs between customer sales data and forecast in CRM with operations and supply data in ERP.
   
   
4. PEP:   You say S&OP is a process requiring C-level commitment, key people and user friendly technology.
   Please explain each telling us which comes first and why?
   CG:     Successful S&OP implementations start with key people who understand and share the vision, followed by C-Level commitments and User friendly technology. People are the underlying key to any S&OP process. Cross-functional coordination between Sales, Operations, marketing and Finance, who inherently have different objectives requires people who buy into a vision that elevates the greater good for a whole versus individual parts. C-Level commitment is required to invest the necessary resources (systems, organization and people) to enable the process and ensure the ongoing discipline required to sustain the process. Technology is required to help streamline the process and provide the necessary tools for insight and decision making around matching demand and supply.
   
   
5. PEP:   If successful S&OP begins with Sales Forecasting and Demand Planning, how does a global, multidivisional organization develop an accurate forecast?
   CG:     Creating an accurate forecast in a multi-division global organization begins with a cross-division process definition with clear performance goals, and enabling collaborative sales forecasting tools. The process must include forecast inputs and participation at multiple levels of the organization including: field sales, sales manager, division manager, and executive levels. Maximum forecast accuracy will be driven by frequency and quality of forecast updates, on-going tracking of performance measures, periodic executive S&OP review meetings, and flexible tools that provide for multiple quantitative and qualitative inputs including customer input, sales opportunities, bookings, backlog, inventory and sell through data.
   
   
6. PEP:   How do you achieve effective S&OP in a configured products environment where the same components are used in multiple products?
   CG:     Companies that produce configured items with multiple key components shared across end-items have a particular challenge in producing a large volume of forecasts for both end-item and components. Planning BOMs that model end-items as independent demand and the component options as dependent demand can streamline the process for forecasting configured products. A further enhancement to the planning BOM is an sBOM which uses sophisticated statistical analysis to predict the optimum mix of components across multiple end-items, at the dependant demand level.
   
   
7. PEP:   You've said that effective S&OP is critical in environments with outsourced manufacturing. How do you factor in collaboration with contract manufacturers?
   CG:     The trend towards outsourced manufacturing requires additional collaboration between the enterprise and the contract manufacturers (CMs) to ensure adequate visibility of supply to balance against demand. Effective collaboration with CMs can help improve the responsiveness of supply to changes in demand.
   
   
8. PEP:   Collaborative planning means teamwork, so who's the captain and who makes the rules?
   CG:     One of the biggest challenges in implementing S&OP is identifying the Captain of a cross functional process including the sales, marketing, operations and finance. While the CEO position is most ideally position to balance the objectives across functions, in many instances, the COO or VP of Supply Chain has taken the lead, working closely with the VP of Sales. The rules must be defined at the executive level to ensure a successful process.
   
   
9. PEP:   Who should own S&OP--Sales, Finance, Operations? Or should it be the CEO or COO?
   CG:     I firmly believe the S&OP process should be owned by the CEO. The CEO is in the best position to provide the appropriate level of commitment and balancing of conflicting objectives to successfully drive the process.
   
   
10. PEP:   Where is the best place to start in implementing a successful S&OP process?
    CG:     Many companies have started the S&OP process without a good sales forecast and buy-in from the sales organization. I believe the starting point for S&OP should be to create a comprehensive sales forecast to drive operations. A strong sales forecast will lead to increased revenues, lower cost and inventories and above average margins.

About the Author:

Steelwedge Vice President, Business Development Chris Givens has track record of accelerating growth at cutting-edge technology companies. He has joined the Steelwedge management team to work with customers and partners as more companies are realizing the need for best-in-class solutions for Sales and Operations Planning to complement their existing investments in ERP and supply chain solutions. Prior to joining Steelwedge, Chris was CEO of Avere, Inc., a real-time supply chain planning and execution solution for the Semiconductor Industry, subsequently sold to a leading supply chain vendor. He served as VP of Product Management at Adexa, and as a Senior Manager with Accenture's Supply Chain Strategy practice where he helped clients in the High Tech and Consumer Packaged Goods industry improve performance through innovative supply chain strategies and technology solutions. Chris holds a MS in Industrial Engineering from Stanford University and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Sacramento State University.