When I joined the world of software as a business analyst from manufacturing, I was naive. How so? I never fathomed the amount of money that commissioned software sales personnel make selling software. This high level of compensation drives extreme behavior. In the selection of software, where the rubber meets the road, the sale of software often becomes a brutal and competitive battle. With a heightened focus on winning the deal,…
A lasso is what supply chain leaders would like to have. Why? To align S&OP. The processes are out of control. Let me explain. As companies transitioned from regional to multi-national organizations, Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) processes proliferated. Today, the average company has seven S&OP processes, but a global chemical company averages over 30. In contrast, as a regional supply chain leader in the 1990’s, my company had one…
This morning E2open announced the acquisition of Steelwedge for an undisclosed sum of money. Founded in 2000, Steelwedge was an innovator in Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) and was an early provider of cloud solutions for supply chain. I estimate that the company had annual sales of 30M$. Clients include Canon, Pfizer, HP Inc, Jaguar Land Rover, Lenovo, Nissan and Monsanto. When E2open called to tell me of the acquisition, they…
It is Sunday. Today I assume a familiar position. Now a ritual, with coffee in one hand and country music blaring, I sit in my faded green chair to write a blog post. I have done this for seven years. This afternoon I am writing my 334th blog post. I will also pen my 95th report for this week’s Supply Chain Insights newsletter. We now reach 23,000 supply chain leaders…
Yesterday morning I was sick. In the early morning, in a hotel room in Antwerp, I crawled to the bathroom and groaned as my body expelled what I think was food poisoning. The body is amazingly efficient in getting rid of what is making you sick. Feeling very green, I stumbled through the airport and found my way to my seat on the plane from Brussels to Philadelphia. <The joys of…
An effective S&OP plan is the goal of many, but there is no clear industry definition of an effectiveness. While there are many maturity models, most are not research based. To better understand the characteristics of an effective S&OP plan, we just completed a study of 73 companies. In the quantitative survey completed this summer, 30 respondents rate their processes as effective and 43 rate the their S&OP processes as less effective on a…
Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) is in a renaissance. The reason? With growth slowing and complexity rising, S&OP is more important than ever. It is not sexy, and it requires hard work; but the greatest value of S&OP is profitable growth. The technology market is rife with unsubstantiated claims and myths. Like a hammer looking for a nail, it seems like every vendor I meet now has an S&OP solution. It is…
As a research analyst I am studying things which are incredibly difficult to measure. The topics may sound easy, but they are not. In my research I answer questions like: Which technology systems drive the greatest satisfaction? How satisfied are users with supply chain planning technologies? What drives the highest level of satisfaction? The answer to these questions requires the analysis of many factors. As a student of the social sciences,…
Definition of a Mistake: An action or judgment that is misguided or wrong. Synonyms: Error, fault, blunder, oversight, miscalculation or a misunderstanding. Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) is important to building value chain agility and improving enterprise performance. (Agility is the ability to have the same performance in cost, quality, and customer service given a level of demand and supply volatility.) Most processes are over 15 years old; yet, only…
Idiom – A Tough Nut to Crack: A problem that is very difficult to solve. Cambridge Dictionary Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) is over 30 years old. I have been studying it as a researcher for 15 years. With the rise of the global multinational, S&OP increased in importance as a way to align and drive organizational balance. In parallel, as shown in the attached infographic, challenges to do it well increased. Companies…
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