S&OP Central

S&OP and risk management (MIT video)

Tamas Toth — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 11:14:31 +0000

One of the biggest benefits of the S&OP process in my view is that it reveals and quantifies risks in your business plans, and rallies people to find solutions or at least mitigation options for those. I have recently seen a great MIT research video detailing all this.However be aware that MIT uses S&OP in [...]

Involve Sales and Marketing in S&OP

Tamas Toth — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 13:50:07 +0000

One of the weakest points of an S&OP process is to establish proper participation and input from Sales and Marketing into the plans. Though a long journey, but this can be achieved in a way that all parties are enthusiastic and happy to collaborate. How? Read on.. I have spoken many people implementing S&OP, and Sales and [...]

What is S&OP after all?

Tamas Toth — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 05:50:11 +0000

Based on latest experience the most successful S&OP is a business process that is used to continuously realign the focus, the actions and necessary resources throughout the organization in order to reach the company’s ambitions. Let’s break down that definition what it means in detail, shall we? First of all let me start with an analogy of [...]

Forecast KPIs – some detail on bias and accuracy

Tamas Toth — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:54:23 +0000

In a previous entry we discussed what S&OP KPIs to use in general. Many have requested and been looking for more detail on specifically forecast related KPIs. So I will detail how to measure the quality and accuracy of a forecast, and more importantly what to do with those measures to influence people. I already described [...]

Provoking thoughts – Include innovation in S&OP

Tamas Toth — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 12:46:19 +0000

Thomas Alva Edison the big innovator said once: “The real challenge in innovation was not invention – coming up with good ideas – but in making them work technically and commercially”. Similarly – according to a dutch study - disagreement and conflict in teams have a positive influence on team performance in the beginning of [...]

S&OP benefits (series) – higher sales growth

Tamas Toth — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 14:57:40 +0000

Sales and Operations Planning accelerates the sales growth due to several factors. In general as it drives better decision making and more targeted, optimal spending, it will result in a stable, sustainable long term growth. But let’s examine the detailed drivers, what is standing behind a stable long term growth? 1. Better customer service As we have discussed [...]

S&OP benefits (series) – improved customer service

Tamas Toth — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 16:01:41 +0000

One of the most quoted burning platforms to implement S&OP is low customer service levels. Looking at companies who have implemented an S&OP process there is a long lasting effect of continuous increase in service levels. Let’s look in detail what mechanisms work in the background. The Customer Service Loss tree Fundamentally you loose customer service in [...]

S&OP benefits (series) – Introduction

Tamas Toth — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 12:16:54 +0000

Companies that run great S&OP processes always will mention several groups of benefits. S&OP will deliver hard benefits in the area of Turnover growth, Profit margin and Cashflow. Besides that you can recognize S&OP believers if they talk about the soft benefits of teamwork, accountability, motivation and control. Even if you read around these benefits seem [...]

Different ways to run a business – and some sailing tips

Tamas Toth — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 09:59:24 +0000

Different stages of S&OP processes through an example Think of S&OP as the way of steering a big sailboat (your business) to reach the harbour (your target) before the nightfall (end of year). You will race other boats on your way (competitors), you have limited food and water (budgets), most probably there are dangerous waters ahead (crisis [...]

With S&OP we are not worried about our customers

Tamas Toth — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 22:23:34 +0000

Let me share a story with you. I was taking a client to visit an FMCG company’s well running S&OP and came across an interesting mindset. People were telling us: “We are absolutely relaxed about our targets.” and “We are not stressing or even looking at the next 3 months”. We were puzzled. Read on what [...]