World Class Sales & Operations Planning

The sales and operations planning (S&OP) process is a major baseline for high-performance companies because, when done correctly, it keeps supply and demand in balance at the volume and detailed mix level, integrates and builds teamwork between general management, sales, operations, finance and product development, and links the company’s strategic and business plans to its detailed processes and tools used to run the business on an hourly basis. However, due to a lack of state-of-the-art guidance, most firms still aren’t achieving the substantial end-to-end supply chain, profit and shareholder value improvements that this process can help deliver.