Now is the time to set high goals – and achieve them!  The Japanese phrase “kicking out  the ladder” examplifies what is required in these times – climbing to the top and hanging on even after the ladder has been pulled away.   The closest equivalent phrases  in American culture are “Sink or Swim” and – courtesty of NASA - “ Failure is Not an Option!”

In other words, set  high goals and achieve them because there is no choice!    It is succeeding when our very survival requires success.   Our livelihoods depend on it – even our families depend upon it.

The video below created by Honda Motor’s illustrates this concept and exemplifies the spirit of the Steelwedge sales and operations planning software team.

Kicking Out the Ladder

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…

Why can’t my financial planning system be used for Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP)?  This is a question I am asked regularly…

It is also the reason why various providers of financial planning solutions have recently partnered  with Steelwedge.

The easiest answer is to speak with an organization that has tried to solve S&OP with a financial planning tool.  In a  few words, it doesn’t work!

But why?  The fundamental answer to this question lies in the architectual foundation of an application such as Steelwedge.   The functional answer is manifest in the out-of-the-box standard functionality offered by executive S&OP applications but not offered in financial planning  applications.   Highlighted below are three key  of the elements to an S&OP system that don’t exist in budgeting, financial, business planning and consolidation applications:

1. High Performance Architecture – S&OP applications must have the capability to handle bottoms-up,  top-down aggregation on-the-fly as part of the native planning process – this often translates into the need to perform complex calculations involving attribute and hierarchy-specific revenue to unit translations at a very detailed level and then rolling up the answer – the net result is the need for a performance-focused database architecture that can perform millions of details and billions of calculations in a matters of seconds.

Simply put, this is not something that high-level, dollar-based financial planning applications- even when supercharged – were ever designed to handle.

2. Support for complex algorithms to handle statistical forecasting, product mix management, attach-rate forecasting, independent-dependent demand management, and bill of materials (BOM) translation.

No financial planning system incorporates the kind of deep operational expertise required to support this requirement.   While any application – with enough man-years of effort – can be programmed to do just about anything – it is simply not practical to replicate the…

If  Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) activities are not aligned and integrated, small problems quickly escalate into major challenges, which adversely impact corporate performance.   As each part of an organization jockey’s to satisfy it’s own priorities, valuable time and resources are wasted, ultimately leading to poor customer service.

The consequences of poor sales & operations planning are substantial: excess inventory, short orders, overtime, inter-plant transfers, expediting, reduced order fulfillment, poor resource utilization.   These issues impact the bottom-line, while fostering a reactive culture of undisciplined business processes.

Creating the proper alignment and balance between demand and supply is not easy.   It requires a clear, focused process, based on industry best practices, that manages sales/marketing and operational issues in a thorough and efficient manner.   Bringing together sales/marketing, operations, finance, and product management to facilitate joint objectives of the overall enterprise is what makes effective S&OP work.

This is why S&OP has become more important than ever!