{"id":984,"date":"2010-10-25T16:50:54","date_gmt":"2010-10-25T20:50:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/demand-planning.com\/?p=984"},"modified":"2010-10-25T16:50:54","modified_gmt":"2010-10-25T20:50:54","slug":"the-magic-of-sop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/demand-planning.com\/2010\/10\/25\/the-magic-of-sop\/","title":{"rendered":"The Magic of S&OP"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Maria Simos CEO e-forecasting.com<\/p><\/div>\n

Teamwork, collaboration, transparency and increased profitability. Sounds like some Disney Magic, right?<\/p>\n

Well based on the experiences shared from the panel at the Institute of Business Forecasting & Planning\u2019s kickoff event on Sunday dubbed the ‘Advanced S&OP Practices Forum’ it’s in fact real and achievable.\u00a0 The panel, which was an opening to IBF\u2019s Supply Chain Planning & Forecasting: Best Practices Conference<\/a>, spoke to an eager room of over 100 demand planners ready to listen and learn about how to take their own company’s S&OP to the next level.<\/p>\n

Tom Wallace who was the MC for the afternoon session, gave us all a history lesson, sharing with us how the real founder of S&OP was not only ahead of his time and changed the way businesses operate, but was also sitting right in the room with us.\u00a0 Dick Lang created Sales & Operations Planning, also known as S&OP, in the 70\u2019s and sat just three rows ahead of me during the forum.\u00a0 How lucky of a group was this to have the opportunity to attend this conference with Dick Ling who also would be leading a workshop the next morning called ‘How to Align Sales & Operations Planning with Strategic Intent.’\u00a0 This elevated the excitement in the room and put the rest of the discussions into a greater context.<\/p>\n

Before having the panelists take over, Tom shared some slides as a warm up.\u00a0 He went over the four fundamentals of demand planning which are demand, supply, volume and mix.\u00a0 He stressed the importance of looking at demand as being the driver. He went on to explain that if we do so \u00a0that demand and supply will become balanced, either by our own actions or external factors whether we like it or not.<\/p>\n

There are a few key themes that resonating in all the panelists:<\/p>\n