SFMF Roundtable
September 5-7, 2007

Sales Forecasting Management Forum--Executive Roundtable University of Tennessee (UTK) Executive Director Paul Dittman, Member Companies and Marketing & Logistics Department Professors
Tom Mentzer, Mark Moon,
Ken Kahn September 5-7, 2007 Knoxville Marriott
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Webcast: August 28, 2007 --
Best Practices Leadership Forum --New Approaches to Sales Forecasting
Dr. John T.( Tom) Mentzer, Bruce Chair of Excellence in Business, Department of Marketing, Logistics and Transportation,
University of Tennessee
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
10AM Pacific, 12 Noon Central,
1PM Eastern
Click to view event detail & enroll

Previous Webcast 7/31 --
Best Practices Leadership Forum -- Implementing a Collaborative Planning Forecasting and Replenishment Program
Ron Ireland, Principal,
Oliver Wight Consultants
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
10am Pacific, 1pm Eastern
10:00 AM - 11:00 AM PDT
View Recorded Webcast

Previous Webcast 6/26 --
Best Practices Leadership Forum -- Sales Opportunity Pipeline
—The Missing Link in S&OP?
Matt Merritt, GM and Founder of
MCG International,
and EJ Tavella, VP Solutions, Steelwedge Software, Inc.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
10am Pacific, 1pm Eastern
10:00 AM - 11:00 AM PDT
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Previous Webcast 5/8 --
Best Practices Leadership Forum -- Sales and Operations Planning for Integrated Business Management
George Palmatier, Principal,
Oliver Wight Consultants
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
10am Pacific, 1pm Eastern
10:00 AM - 11:00 AM PDT
View Recorded Webcast

Previous Webcast 4/3 --
Best Practices Leadership Forum -- How to Extend SAP for effective Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP)
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
10am Pacific, 1pm Eastern
Mr. Padman Ramankutty, CEO, Intrigosys, LLC., former CEO and Founder, Bristlecone, Inc.
View Recorded Webcast

Previous Webcast 2/27 --
Best Practices Leadership Forum --S&OP Best Practices:
A Case Study
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
1pm Eastern, 12noon Central,
10am Pacific
Dr. Chris Gopal, Partner,
Deloitte Consulting and former VP Operations Strategy, Dell, Inc.
View Webcast Presentation

Steelwedge Momentum:
Three New S&OP Clients

Spansion, the largest company exclusively focused on Flash
memory solutions.

EDS, a leading global technology
services company delivering
business solutions to its clients.

Honeywell International Inc.
a diversified, technology and manufacturing company,
serving customers worldwide.

Industry Blogs
Here are the Industry Blogs that
we watch, and you might want to:

www.crmblog.org
www.supplychainer.com
www.andyonenterprisesoftware.com
www.siliconvalleywatcher.com
blogs.ittoolbox.com/crm
blogs.ittoolbox.com/supplychain
www.vics.org/blog

If you have ideas for future articles or how we can improve this newsletter, please send us your feedback

Implementing a Collaborative Planning, Forecasting and Replenishment Program

In 1966 Voluntary Inter-industry Commerce Standard (VICS) sponsored a CFPR working group to create collaboration guideline standards for business and technology. The primary purposes were three: (1) Improve demand management forecasting getting a customer view; (2) Gain critical mass for suppliers through sales & operations planning; and (3) Take Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) to a new level through collaborative replenishment.

Sales Opportunity Pipeline—The Missing Link in S&OP?

For the VP of Sales, sales planning, forecast accuracy, sales pipeline intelligence and product mix management must be RIGHT and must be NOW as the CEO/COO, Board of Directors, and the sales teams have to be on the same page. An “autobahn” of information from field sales to sales executives is critical, and RIGHT and NOW are equally important: bottom-up input into the forecast with appropriate levels of review needs to be accurate and reportable; and near real-time field input should be proactive and use exception-based processing and reporting.

Sales and Operations Planning for Integrated Business Management

Beginning with Production Planning back in the 70’s and 80’s we have seen a maturation and evolution of S&OP into integrated business management with supply chain collaboration at the present time. S&OP is about cross-functional integration across the business entity including—Demand (Marketing and Sales), Supply (Manufacturing, Materials, Logistics, Purchasing and Supply Chain), New Products (Research, Development and Engineering), Finance (Planning and Accounting) and Support (HR, Quality Assurance, Customer Service)

Extending SAP for Sales and Operations Planning

Sales and Operations Planning is needed now more than ever because the 21st Century marketplace is moving at the speed of light. Changing markets, new technology, contract manufacturing, outsourcing, off-shoring and other factors require a faster, more accurate formal process for corporate decision-making to balance demand and supply, understand product volume and mix, establish a forward-looking monthly cadence that links strategic planning to tactical detail.

The successful enterprise with an effective S&OP process will have better customer service, lower inventories, shorter fulfillment times, stable manufacturing, clear visibility and clear communications. It will be able to out-maneuver it’s competition in distributed manufacturing and global product launches.

Ten Important Questions about S&OP: