Roger Nessier comes to Steelwedge from Symphony Services where he was a founding executive and Vice President of Products and Services. He grew Symphony from 80 to 4000+ people over eight years and has worked with over 300 software companies to deliver outsourced development, support, services and process consulting. At i2 Technologies where he served as the Vice President of Development, he managed 150 team members in India, Canada and US, developing and deploying order management, marketplace and content solutions.
Roger is passionate about sports, especially snow skiing and bicycling. He has a strong interest in learning about other cultures and is an active member in a Vietnamese Cycling Club. He takes great pleasure in accomplishing feats such as bicycling from San Jose to the top of Mt Diablo and back. He often rides as much as 70 miles in a single day on weekends. Roger and his wife have been married for 19 years and live in San Jose.
Q. Why did you choose to join Steelwedge?
A. It is important for me to feel engaged and excited about the value my company provides for our customers, but also feel that I am doing something socially and environmentally responsible. The Steelwedge solution appears simple in its approach, but the results it achieves for our customers are game changing. I can’t say that about many trendy software products on the market. Steelwedge’s solution is one of the rare software solutions that is able to satisfy both the capitalist and the environmentalist in me. Working at Steelwedge I feel I am doing great things by reducing waste and fuel costs, but at the same time improving the bottom line for our customers!
Q. What…
Webinar featuring Chris Turner of StrataBridge
Thursday, December 16 at 4:00 p.m. GMT
Register here!
What does Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) mean to you and your company? Do you know if your demand and supply decisions are in sync with your organization’s strategic priorities? Is it possible to align your S&OP process with the big picture without getting bogged down with the many details in the “process”?
Sales and supply chain decision making is complicated – particularly in today’s era of demand volatility and complex, global supply chains. Every stakeholder in the sales, marketing, finance, and supply chain needs to be queried and considered. Forecasts and assumptions need to be checked, particularly when managers are used to relying on past performance and gut feel. You will likely find yourself spending long hours gathering the necessary data before you can even begin weighing the many sales and supply chain trade-offs at your disposal Is this the best way to spend your time? What if you could optimize the process so that you and your S&OP team can quickly and confidently determine the best way forward for your company?
Chris Turner, co-founder of strategy and change management consulting firm StrataBridge, is set to inspire us to stop fretting about process details and dive right into decision-making mode in a webcast entitled “Forget the S&OP Process … Start Making Decisions!” scheduled for Thursday, December 16 at 4:00 p.m. GMT. You can learn the answers to these questions and more when he teams up with John Sookias, Vice President of International Sales and Managing Director (EMEA) of Steelwedge, to discuss powerful ways to connect strategic planning with operational decision making.
In this webinar, you’ll discover how to view S&OP through a lens of the…
Have you lost faith in Sales forecasts?
Does Sales consistently over or under estimate future sales activity?
A multi-billion dollar global manufacturer is struggling. Two divisions of the company are at odds on how best to achieve world class forecast accuracy. Regional sales account representatives provide forecasts well above historical sales levels. Why? Because inventories made available to each country are insufficient to meet market demand. The result: predict more sales to try to influence supply decisions and receive a greater portion of supply for your region. One division has decided that a centralized approach is best and is no longer considering regional sales input. The other division is moving to a collaborative S&OP approach where regional input is requested, evaluated and incorporated in the overall plan.
Which method do you think will produce a better plan?
Which method will distribute limited resources better?
Which method will yield higher profitability?
Time will tell for this organization. Yet, we can make a prediction today. Experience would suggest that a well-designed, collaborative S&OP process will produce better results. Here’s how we look at how Top-Down and Bottom-Up S&OP drives better results.
1. Bottom-Up Inputs: Bottom-up forecasts are accumulated from many contributors. A distributed sales force may have hundreds or thousands of contributors. Each contributor has a specific area of expertise such as a specific customer, product or geographic area. The contributor enters her forecasts for her specific area of responsibility. Forecasts from all contributors are summed to capture an overall bottom-up forecast.
2. Top-Down Inputs: Top-down projections apply a more centralized view. A small number of forecasters will look at various inputs and generate forecasts. Influencing factors may include market data, economic indicators, and general product and customer trends.
3.…
Does this sound familiar?
The Sales VP is agitated…very agitated. “Don’t tell me what you CANNOT do, I made the sale, now you fill the orders!!!” The Operations VP responds in kind, “Your forecast was not even close to what you just booked. We cannot increase supply that fast!”
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Where do they fit in an S&OP cycle?
Sales and Operations Planning serves as a critical process to project, balance and manage the integration of supply and demand. The process starts with the demand signal. The Sales organization collects bottom-up forecasts from the distributed sales force. Sales management provides a top-down review injecting market and product insights. At this point, no supply constraints have been levied to temper the forecast. Thus, we refer to this as an unconstrained demand forecast.
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The S&OP cycle continues with demand and supply reviews. The intent of these cycle steps is to validate assumptions, check reasonableness and align resource plans needed to support planned demand. Although planning horizons vary from one business to the next, in general, manufacturers must commit in advance to facilities, material purchases and even labor. These supply side plans will limit the ability of the organization to significantly exceed its projected business level. Limitations tend to be tighter in the near term with greater flexibility in the medium to long term.
Through the S&OP process, the organization sets a projected business level that balances expected sales and production capabilities with financial and inventory implications. The constrained demand plan reflects a demand plan aligned with the supply plan.
Do we need both?
Many companies find it useful to distinguish and track the gap between unconstrained and constrained demand plans. An increasing gap may indicate lost opportunity to realize sales that exceed current capacity. Companies should scrutinize unconstrained demand…
