Below is a brief excerpt from an article published in today’s Wall Street Journal.

One might ask – how is this relevant to a blog on Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP)?

Not only do lean times beget new, and innovative fashion ideas – but they also beget new and innovative ways to run your business!  Is my sales  organization marching to the same drummer as my operations organization?

Now is the time to think long and hard about tough questions.

Do my planning processes meet the demands of today’s rapidly changing environment?  Are planning decisions based on facts?   Is the information I use to make strategic decisions involving sales promotions, inventory,  sales strategy and operational capacity timely?  Am I looking at and optimizing my decisions based on the “Big Picture” ?  Do I have an efficient system for managing the automation process (such as the purpose-built Executive S&OP solution developed by Steelwedge Software)?  Am I using the valuable information inside my system ecosystem – tracking opportunities inside Salesforce.com,  analyzing demand patterns using data from SAP BW, APO and ERP, or benchmarking my operational plans against my financial goals created using SAP BPC, Oracle  Hyperion, etc

There are many more questions to ask during these challenging times.

Now is the perfect time to innovate and to make difficult but lasting changes.  Institute disciplined S&OP processes, automate slow,  labor-intensive, manual processes, and improving your decision making process!

Lean Times Beget Fresh Fashion Ideas

By CHRISTINA BINKLEY, Wall Street Journal

Judging from the styles on display at fashion week, a recession does wonders for creativity.

There’s been an outpouring of artistry and ingenuity…

Attributes are often needed to plan the supply and demand of products that are built-to-order or required to meet complicated engineering specifications. What is new, is the way that Steelwedge seamless enables companies with complex configured products to manage their Sales and Operations Planning process using this approach.

Examples of the types of companies that benefit from this approach include those that manufacture products such as servers (disk drives, processor type, etc), network switches (type, size, capacity, memory), and electrical components (different voltages, capacities and fittings).

Engineered products drive higher margins and premium prices because they meet the actual requirements of customers and halt the profit-eroding impact of products which are commodities. Steelwedge customers use attributes not only for Demand and Supply Planning but also for S&OP thereby enabling companies to better track and plan their high margin products.

For S&OP, attribute-based planning is used to translate market demand into demand for a specific group of products that an organization sells. At the order level, attribute planning determines which products are used to satisfy demand.

Furthermore, Steelwedge customers use attributes to describe the engineering specifications, code-date of manufacture, lot id, and color to support specific customer needs. Environmental concerns, safety concerns, and quality concerns also drive customers to prefer specific suppliers for a product. Attribute-based planning has enabled some Steelwedge customers to drive higher prices and better manage their inventories.

During the past year,  all of the major analyst firms have started tracking Sales and Operations Planning  (S&OP) closely.  Why is this the case?  After years of being viewed as one of many important processes adopted by best-in-class CPG companies, companies in all sectors of the economy are now realizing that effective balancing of supply and demand mst be done at a strategic as well as a detailed level.  Moreover, the maturation of the data and infrastructure available to execute S&OP now makes it possible for companies to achieve this important goal.

Moreover, the current economic crisis is forcing companies to manage demand against supply much more tightly and effectively than ever before.   The net result is a burgeoning market for consulting and software firms tapping into this demand.   While only a handful of companies such as Steelwedge Software are truly dedicated to supporting this vital, strategic process, many other companies – mostly in the supply chain space – have jumped on the bandwagon and are now offering solutions and services in this area.

So what is the analysts view?  The answer is surprisingly divergent.  While some analysts see S&OP as a generic term for a monthly executive supply-demand review process, others look at it in  a more nuanced way.  Some analysts have dissected it by industry whereas others view it as function of organizational maturity.

In any case, we are extremely glad to see that the world is finally elevating S&OP to the level it deserves as the driving strategic process that integrates executive  management and corporate strategy with operational tactics.

Last year, 100% of Steelwedge Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) solutions were delivered on a “SaaS” (Software-as-a-Service or OnDemand) basis – in other words, they were delivered “in the cloud.”   Our partners and prospects frequently ask us why?   The simple response is that it is what our customers asked.   However, the broader question is why is this happening?   The strategic answer is that the nature of  computing is going through a sea change  and that change is being accelerated by the current economic crisis.

But first, what is cloud computing?  It is a world where applications and data are hosted in a “cloud” consisting of thousands of computers are linked together and a ccessible via the Internet.  With cloud computing,  all activities are performed via th internet rather than being based on your desktop or inside a corporate network.

How does cloud computing change the way people work?  For one,  people are no  longer tied to their office or to a single computer.  Work can be taken anywhere and team members can easily collaborate on plans and forecasts.

Why?  Cloud computing offers a revenue and service model that enables companies to survive today’s challenging times – on one hand the huge upfront capital costs associated with the kind of traditional enterprise computing solutions offered by SAP and  Oracle are eliminated.  On the other, the need for costly, large dedicated IT organizationns with specialized knowledged are also eliminated.

Further,  cloud solutions lend themselves to easy collaboration with partners and customers outside of corporate firewalls and ensure that software upgrades and updates are seamlessly applied with minimal disruption.  In short,  cloud computing offers customers a compelling, accessible, flexible, pay-as-you-go, and extremely cost-effective solution for automating cumbersome, manual excel-based integrated business planning and sales and operations planning processes.