{"id":9714,"date":"2022-07-08T09:01:33","date_gmt":"2022-07-08T13:01:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/demand-planning.com\/?p=9714"},"modified":"2022-07-08T09:01:33","modified_gmt":"2022-07-08T13:01:33","slug":"driving-decision-making-in-sop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/demand-planning.com\/2022\/07\/08\/driving-decision-making-in-sop\/","title":{"rendered":"Driving Decision Making In S&OP"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Sometimes driving S&OP towards decision making is challenging, with meetings often focused more on the here and now than looking forward, especially when the economic environment is so uncertain. <\/strong><\/p>\n

The pandemic highlighted the importance of collaboration, consensus and transparency in this process and, if we weren\u2019t aware before, the criticality of using S&OP<\/a> to make timely and effective decisions. So, how do we optimize S&OP<\/a> for decision making?<\/span><\/p>\n

The Challenges of Planning in the Current Environment\u00a0<\/b><\/h2>\n

I have been involved in S&OP<\/a> since 2005 and <\/span>am currently implementing<\/span> S&OP<\/a> at DS Smith, a global packaging company. S&OP<\/a> is all too often an update forum where we talk about previous performance and a one number plan. With the challenges presented by COVID and the Ukraine war <\/span>scenario planning is critical, so a business has a response to factors that may become reality. This reduces the all too common firefighting loop that businesses find themselves in. I have seen, however, t<\/span>hat functions don\u2019t always like giving up their power of decision making to a collaborative, cross-functional forum, partly because they feel that they alone have the depth of knowledge to make decision relating to their functions, and partly because they can make decisions quicker if they operate outside the S&OP<\/a> cycle.<\/span><\/p>\n

In my world, the focus is now much more short term as well as on assumptions for the longer term horizon as we\u2019re unclear as to what the next year to 18 months will look like. Selling patterns are different to pre-pandemic and what I\u2019m finding now is that we need a very good S&OE (Sales & Operations Execution) process running alongside S&OP<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

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