How can businesses improve their Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) processes to reach world-class optimization levels?
Gilmore: S&OP has to be rolled out to different divisions, countries and operating regions. It really should be a single, global process for the whole organization, but that takes time. However, while you can develop process templates and best practices, S&OP needs to adapt to the different environments those regions and divisions operate in. You can’t just assume what works in the United States and one business will work exactly that way for companies in Asia. It likely won’t. The best companies are really good at learning from those differences to continue to improve the S&OP master process. Every business and region will contribute learnings. Additionally, even if you come out of S&OP with a single demand forecast, does that mean it is right? Of course it doesn’t. You can’t totally anticipate the way a competitor is going to react to what you’re doing in the marketplace. You can’t completely plan for supply chain disruptions that are out of your control. That’s where scenario analys
