Think of S&OP as the way of steering a big sailboat (your business) to reach the harbour (your target) before the nightfall (end of year).
You will race other boats on your way (competitors), you have limited food and water (resource and budgets), most probably there are dangerous waters ahead (crisis situation, issues), even technical failures can occur underway.
So how do you organize your crew that the boat reaches the harbour under any circumstances safely and on time?
To achieve this you will need an initial route plan broken down into who needs to do what & when (strategic plan). Somebody will need to gather information about what is ahead (forecasting): rocks, bad weather. That information needs to be summarized and sent to the right people (consensus) who understand and analyse the information. They can propose plan changes (gap management) to the captain, who takes the decision (Business S&OP meeting) at the end, and is responsible for the ship.
This sounds familiar, right?
We find that coaching your everyday S&OP participants using everyday language overcomes the fuzz of complex definitions of S&OP, and you get better acceptance, quicker implementation, higher motivation. he process will just stick much better.
We are a freshly established consulting business supporting YOU in a practical way in implementing your improvement projects in the area of Supply Chain and Business Planning.
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