The Europeans are struggling sideways, the American’s muddling onward … and Maurice Sendak has passed on. So, where are the wild things? Agility is about adaption. In Maurice’s iconic book, Where the Wild Things Are, a naughty boy embarks on an odyssey across the sea to a land where he encounters wild monsters and enters into a giant rumpus. Does this sound familiar? Escaping from a recession, the US Economy undertook a journey across the void into a land of unmitigated mortgages followed by a rumpus of real estate speculation. A few years later, the ever proud Europeans thinking themselves above the fray, promptly joined the rumpus. … Read the rest
During last week’s webinar, “Are you ready for the Sea Change in Supply Chain Strategy” we received too many questions from our attendees to answer them all during the live session. So our hosts Roddy Martin and Nari Viswanathan agreed to continue the discussion with me after the live session for our first podcast, which you can listen to or download from the player at the bottom of this post.
Around our office, the S&OP pros constantly stress the importance of integrating the right people, process, and technology to be successful. Roddy and Nari offer their perspective on the “People” portion of that strategy in this podcast, answering questions on:… Read the rest
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,”
George Santayana, 1905
This coming Sunday marks the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the RMS Titanic and a recent New York Times Op-Ed piece from Roger Cohen articulates how the ship’s captain Edward Smith and his elite passengers peacefully cruised the Atlantic in total luxury—completely oblivious to their coming fate. It turned out that the upper class passengers of the Titantic were not only unaware of their immediate destiny but also completely in the dark about the dawning of a new era – a period of profound darkness that spanned the Bolshevik revolution, WWI, the Great Depression and WWII.
In Cohen’s piece, he compares that era to today and asks if history is repeating itself once again. Were we happily floating through the post-Cold War “Peace Dividend”, a never-ending housing boom and the enormous growth in luxury goods before 9/11 suddenly struck? And then the Iraq and Afghan wars. And then the Financial Crisis. And what next? Maybe global climate change? Perhaps peace and prosperity?
So what does this have to do with sales and operations planning (S&OP)? Just replace the word “ship” with “supply chain” in the following quote:
“I cannot imagine any condition which would cause this ship to founder.
[Ed. Note: As part of an occasional series, we invite industry experts and webinar hosts to discuss questions from our readers. You can search for these using the Agility Webinar Q&A tag. In this post, recent webinar host Tom Wallace provides his perspective. And stay tuned for additional questions from this webinar next week.]
Q: You mentioned Procter & Gamble (P&G) in the webinar. Is their success in S&OP based on the large scale of the company? Is a small company with less resources capable of such success?
A: P&G’S success with S&OP is not due to the company’s large size; it’s in spite of it. The larger the organization, the greater the challenge. Of course, larger corporations do have more resources, and the challenge is to use them well.
I’ve seen very successful S&OP users as small as $30 million per year.
Q: How do you reconcile strategy and tactical / execution in sales and operations planning (S&OP)? Too often there is an executive S&OP champion but no feed on input or linkage to execution on output?
A: To be successful, Executive S&OP must be tightly linked to the detailed planning processes: primarily the master schedule. That it turn drives requirements to MRP and kanban.… Read the rest
Over the past five tumultuous years, global business inter-dependencies have caused companies to review, revise and redefine nearly every facet of their operations.
Last week, dozens of business leaders and industry pundits gathered in Miami at the IE Group’s Integrated Business Planning Innovation Conference to take a pulse on lessons learned, new ideas and “next practices” on how to better, more agilely plan for whatever lies ahead—or, as one presenter put it—“to peek around the corner.”
Did this group, generally tasked with driving consensus in their organizations, crack the code on HOW to do Integrated Business Planning? Did we agree on WHY we do it? WHEN we do it? Or even, WHAT we call it? No, no, no and no. But was it engaging, insightful and worthwhile discussion? You bet.
Following are some highlight from two days of dialogue that was robust enough to keep all of us in a chilly conference room for two days, when we were just steps away from a glorious, sunny stretch of Miami beach.
Best Analogy:
If S&OP is the connective tissue of the organization, IBP is the nervous system, allowing it to sense, react and move forward.
Take-away: The planning practice is evolving.… Read the rest
