Steelwedge Software http://www.steelwedge.com/blog Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP), Collaborative Sales Forecasting Sun, 02 Nov 2008 20:38:15 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5 en Using Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) to Manage through Uncertain, Recessionary Times http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/SteelwedgeSoftware/~3/440275428/using-sales-and-operations-planning-sop-to-manage-through-uncertain-recessionary-times.html http://www.steelwedge.com/blog/using-sales-and-operations-planning-sop-to-manage-through-uncertain-recessionary-times.html#comments Sun, 02 Nov 2008 20:38:15 +0000 Glen Margolis, Founder & CEO http://www.steelwedge.com/blog/?p=56 With rapidly increasing frequency, customers and prospects are asking us for assistance in improving their S&OP process.  When we ask the question “why now?” the answer is consistent - in a supply contrained world – balancing suppy and demand and reviewing business strategy were not central issues.  

In a world of volatile demand and unpredictable margins, however, S&OP planning moves to the forefront. 

For example, Steelwedge (www.steelwedge.com) is currently working with a leading alternative energy production company.  Until last month, they were confident that demand would far outstrip supply and therefore did not place any emphasis on strategic intiatives for managing supply-demand gaps.   In the new world they are anticipating a rapid swing to excess supply.  Suddenly, the institutionalization of a disciplined sales and operations planing process that drives integrated business planning has become mission critical.  

Prior to the recent shift in the supply-demand balance, their focus was exclusively on eliminating supply bottlenecks and improving production quality.  Today, however, the focus is necessarily on understanding and anticipating demand patterns and tightly managing the associated inventory bets.  Eliminating latency out of their planning process is essential.  Their current planning process is limited to a few individuals downloading data from various systems and creating a build plan after six weeks of number crunching.  There future, with the assistance of Steelwedge, is the creation of a monthly sales and operations planning process that harnesses real-time data and is updated daily on an exception basis.

This new approach will enable them to manage the demand shocks, supply concerns, and frequent surprises endemic to today’s world.

How is your company managing in these unpredictable times?  Have you eliminated all informatoin latencies?  Are you collecting and collating all relevant supply and demand information?  Do decision makers have visiblity into detail level exceptions and aggregate level signals?  Is strategy aligned with opeational tactics?  Are you leveraging operational performance management information to create accountability and flexiblity?

 

]]> http://www.steelwedge.com/blog/using-sales-and-operations-planning-sop-to-manage-through-uncertain-recessionary-times.html/feed http://www.steelwedge.com/blog/using-sales-and-operations-planning-sop-to-manage-through-uncertain-recessionary-times.html How to Choose S&OP Software (Sales and Operations Planning Software) http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/SteelwedgeSoftware/~3/430240576/choose-sop-software-sales-and-operations-planning-software.html http://www.steelwedge.com/blog/choose-sop-software-sales-and-operations-planning-software.html#comments Fri, 24 Oct 2008 00:38:58 +0000 Glen Margolis, Founder & CEO http://www.steelwedge.com/blog/?p=55 AMR and Gartner have both recently documented the fact that global manufacturing companies using SAP or Oracle are increasingly choosing Steelwedge as their S&OP software.  The Steelwedge Sales and Operations Planning software solution is offered as Software as a Service (SaaS) as well as for on-premise deployment.  Steelwedge’s newest offering is a full BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) approach whereby Steelwedge S&OP software is c ombined with Steelwedge Strategic Services and Steelwedge Professional Services to offer a holistic, integrated approach to S&OP that combines best practice approaches with leading-edge software and deep domain expertise to shorten the investment payback period and drive a higher ROI,  more quickly.

]]> http://www.steelwedge.com/blog/choose-sop-software-sales-and-operations-planning-software.html/feed http://www.steelwedge.com/blog/choose-sop-software-sales-and-operations-planning-software.html SAP Customers Selecting Steelwedge Software to Meet their Sales and Operations Planning Needs http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/SteelwedgeSoftware/~3/430172223/sap-customers-selecting-steelwedge-software-to-meet-their-sales-and-operations-planning-needs.html http://www.steelwedge.com/blog/sap-customers-selecting-steelwedge-software-to-meet-their-sales-and-operations-planning-needs.html#comments Fri, 24 Oct 2008 00:33:50 +0000 Glen Margolis, Founder & CEO http://www.steelwedge.com/blog/?p=54 Leading SAP customers are increasingly selecting Steelwedge to meet their business planning needs — citing that Steelwedge is the easiest-to-use, quickest-to-implement, and most powerful S&OP and performance management solution available. They state that only Steelwedge offers the flexibility, functionality, agility and power they require. Steelwedge was also recently named as the leading provider of dedicated S&OP solutions by analyst firms AMR and Gartner.

SAP customers using Steelwedge to meet their sales forecasting, operational planning and Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) requirements include Honeywell, Hewlett Packard, Harley-Davidson, Nvidia and Spansion. “Steelwedge offers breakthrough technology that overcomes the planning challenges created by the growth of disparate, departmental data sources and the lack of formal planning processes.” said Glen Margolis, CEO of Steelwedge Software. “The collaborative planning model and Netweaver-compliant technology stack offered by Steelwedge solves these evolving challenges for the first time through its elegant and easy-to-use solution.”

The Steelwedge Sales Planning and Performance Management solution bridges the gap between sales pipeline opportunities and demand planning processes, incorporating market intelligence into the consensus demand forecasting and S&OP process. In addition, it allows executive management to improve planning processes through best-practice workflows, performance management, and product configuration planning tools.

“ERP companies have failed to provide practical solutions for sales planning and performance management,” said Steelwedge CEO Glen Margolis. “With each passing day, more SAP and Oracle customers are currently evaluating, implementing or using Steelwedge collaborative sales forecasting and sales & operations planning (S&OP) capabilities.”

]]> http://www.steelwedge.com/blog/sap-customers-selecting-steelwedge-software-to-meet-their-sales-and-operations-planning-needs.html/feed http://www.steelwedge.com/blog/sap-customers-selecting-steelwedge-software-to-meet-their-sales-and-operations-planning-needs.html Steelwedge Software Announces Sales Planning and Performance Management (SPPM) Release 5.0 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/SteelwedgeSoftware/~3/422721341/steelwedge-software-announces-sales-planning-and-performance-management-sppm-release-50.html http://www.steelwedge.com/blog/steelwedge-software-announces-sales-planning-and-performance-management-sppm-release-50.html#comments Thu, 16 Oct 2008 14:41:24 +0000 Glen Margolis, Founder & CEO http://www.steelwedge.com/blog/?p=53 SPPM Release 5.0 provides localization for up to 20 languages, expanded capabilities for external collaboration with customers and suppliers, and integrated sales pipeline opportunity forecasting

Steelwedge Software announced today a new product release 5.0 for its Sales Planning & Performance Management (SPPM) solution.

Steelwedge SPPM release 5.0 expands on its existing multi-currency and international capabilities by offering localization support for more than 20 languages. The timing of Release 5.0 corresponds with a growing demand from existing multi-national customers and new sales opportunities from companies in Europe, Asia and around the world. “As the recognized leader in S&OP applications, SPPM release 5.0 further fuels our rapid growth in international markets.” said Glen Margolis, CEO. In addition to expanding the international capabilities of its product, Steelwedge recently opened a sales office in the Hyderabad, India and will soon be establishing another sales office in Beijing, China. .

The Steelwedge collaborative platform was originally architected to support internal and external collaboration. SPPM Collaborative Gateway users plan and share forecasts with external customers and suppliers. Steelwedge SPPM release 5.0 expands the capabilities of its Collaborative Gateway product to enable collaboration with external customers and suppliers as defined by the industry standard Collaborative Planning Forecasting and Replenishment (CPFR). “Extending S&OP beyond the enterprise requires a solution to embrace external customers and suppliers as part of the planning process. Release 5.0 expands our solution to support CPFR by enhancing our replenishment planning and inventory management capabilities. We are particularly excited about this new offering which we will be instrumental in growing our business in the Consumer Products and High Tech industries.” said Chris Givens, VP of Marketing.”

Integrating sales pipeline opportunities from CRM applications as part of the overall sales forecasting process has enabled Steelwedge to become a leading provider of sales forecasting solutions for large manufacturing companies. SPPM release 5.0 also offers expanded integrated sales opportunity forecasting by automating the management of sales opportunities into time phased forecasting periods. Bridging the gap between discrete sales opportunities and the overall time phased forecast is a key requirement for integrating sales and operations planning (S&OP).

SPPM Release 5.0 is scheduled for general availability in Q4 of 2008.