The Four Keys to S&OP Effectiveness.

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As mentioned last week, we just completed an S&OP e-book called “S&OP in the 21st century: Your system for navigating the modern business landscape.”

I thought I’d share a short excerpt of the beginning of the third chapter to give you a taste of what this e-book is all about:

If Excel, ERP, and legacy planning aren’t the right tools for the job, what is?

Imagine a pilot flying from New York to Los Angeles at night without any navigation systems or instruments to measure his location, wind speed, or altitude. Instead, every two hours he checks the stars with a sextant, extracts data from the flight recorder about his throttle settings, and draws in the plane’s likely location on a map.

What are the chances of that pilot actually getting to LA? Can he arrive on any predictable timetable? You’ll likely agree his chances are slim to none.

A modern pilot embarks with a general flight plan, but then monitors a continuous readout of key metrics, which he uses to make numerous small course corrections to help arrive at the proper destination on schedule.

It’s the same for business. Every company needs a sophisticated navigation system to help determine where you are going, where you have been, when you are off course, and how to get back on course.

Successful S&OP provides a navigation system and a set of instruments for piloting a company through our turbulent times.

This chapter describes 4 keys to highly effective S&OP:

  1. East-West integration, bringing together demand and supply planning
  2. North-South integration, bringing together Finance and Operations
  3. Tying together volume and mix plans
  4. S&OP on demand, not only on schedule

Any enterprise that can find all four of these keys will unlock the door to S&OP and take a big step up the maturity staircase.

Want to continue reading? Download your copy today.

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