{"id":1203,"date":"2011-05-13T12:24:33","date_gmt":"2011-05-13T16:24:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/demand-planning.com\/?p=1203"},"modified":"2011-05-13T12:24:33","modified_gmt":"2011-05-13T16:24:33","slug":"why-integrate-cash-flow-forecasting-in-the-sales-operations-planning-sop-process","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/demand-planning.com\/2011\/05\/13\/why-integrate-cash-flow-forecasting-in-the-sales-operations-planning-sop-process\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Integrate Cash Flow Forecasting in the Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) Process?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Melissa<\/a>

Melissa Takas - V&M Star<\/p><\/div>\n

Tom Wallace and I are currently collaborating on a portion of his new book. According to Tom, the book is titled Sales & Operations Planning: Beyond the Basics<\/em> and according to Tom, \u201cwill focus on innovative enhancements to the basic S&OP set of processes\u201d. One such innovative enhancement that has been made by V&M STAR is the full integration of cash flow forecasting within the S&OP process.<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

At V&M STAR, Finance was involved with S&OP from day one and within six months, after the process was stable, we were able to begin integrating financial data. I believe that one of the best choices we made was involving Finance from the beginning so that they would be able to understand the S&OP process<\/a> better, and begin to understand where the data would now come from.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t worry though if you didn\u2019t include Finance in your S&OP process in the beginning because it\u2019s not too late! The important thing is that your finance department becomes accustomed to how the S&OP process works and what role they will be expected to play going forward.<\/p>\n

At V&M STAR we have seen five major benefits from linking financial data to the S&OP process:<\/p>\n

1) Better strategic planning for outages (plant shutdowns) and scheduled downtime. Forecasting <\/a>this far into the future enables us to plan effectively and schedule efficiently planned outages for capital projects or maintenance repairs.<\/p>\n

2) Better alignment with strategic goals. Because the operational and financial numbers are now linked we are better able to align with the strategic goals of the company.<\/p>\n

3) A more sophisticated annual budgeting process. Since we are forecasting eighteen months into the future we already have a full year forecast in July when the budget process begins and the data is validated and locked in at the Executive S&OP<\/a> meeting that month.<\/p>\n

4) Better cash flow management. Building too much inventory can cause major issues with the company\u2019s cash flow but by integrating financial data into S&OP the team was able to see the impact of the decision and adjust the inventory build to meet both demand and cash flow needs.<\/p>\n

5) Increased credibility with Stakeholders and Stockholders. The monthly forecasts<\/a> given to Corporate are based on information shared during the S&OP Executive Meeting<\/a>. This gives an up-to-date picture of the current needs of the business. Another benefit is that Corporate now has a more accurate monthly forecast. This in turn increases the business\u2019 credibility, which in my opinion is the most important benefit of all.<\/p>\n

I very much look forward to being able to share insights on V&M STAR\u2019s fully integrated financial data and how it has benefited us. More so I am exited to be able to gain new prospective from a large group of presenters at the APICS & IBF\u2019s Best of the Best S&OP Conference in Chicago.<\/a><\/p>\n

Your comments or challenges on your S&OP experience are welcome!<\/p>\n

Melissa R. Takas
\nOperations Controlling Supervisor
\nV&M STAR<\/p>\n

Hear Melissa Speaker at:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tom Wallace and I are currently collaborating on a portion of his new book. According to Tom, the book is titled Sales & Operations Planning: Beyond the Basics and according to Tom, \u201cwill focus on innovative enhancements to the basic S&OP set of processes\u201d. One such innovative enhancement that has been made by V&M STAR […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":816,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[82,224,60,61,62,64,65,66,34,39,68,69,70,35,42,43,44,36,48,81,37,73,74,38,225],"class_list":{"0":"post-1203","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-forecasting-and-planning","7":"tag-apics","8":"tag-best-of-the-best-sop-conference","9":"tag-best-practices","10":"tag-business-forecasting","11":"tag-collaborative-forecasting","12":"tag-demand-forecast","13":"tag-demand-forecasting","14":"tag-demand-management","15":"tag-demand-planning","16":"tag-economic-forecasting","17":"tag-executive-sop","18":"tag-forecast-accuracy","19":"tag-forecast-error","20":"tag-forecasting","21":"tag-forecasting-metrics","22":"tag-forecasting-models","23":"tag-forecasting-system","24":"tag-ibf","25":"tag-institute-of-business-forecasting-and-planning","26":"tag-inventory-management","27":"tag-sop","28":"tag-sales-operations-planning","29":"tag-sales-forecasting","30":"tag-supply-chain","31":"tag-vm-star"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demand-planning.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1203"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demand-planning.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demand-planning.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demand-planning.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/816"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demand-planning.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demand-planning.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1203\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demand-planning.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demand-planning.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demand-planning.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}