Planning

Planning is an important value-added activity in the corporate value chain. While it is inevitable for any organization, certain key planning methodologies enable an organization achieve a competitive advantage.

1. Business Planning is the annual exercise of generating the Budget for the upcoming year that includes the volume, cost and profit plan for the company. The process may also incorporate developing a long-term forecast. Learn more.

2. Promotional Planning. Develop the promotional plan, model the volume impact (or lift), evaluate the ROI and incorporate the plan into the sku-level supply chain forecast. Learn more.

3. Collaborative Planning is the process of planning, forecasting and replenishing to customer supply chain needs in a collaborative relationship between the supplier and the customer. Learn more.

4. VMI & CMI. Vendor Managed Inventory is the process of managing the customer inventory, replenish their stores and warehouses so optimal inventory is kept in the customer supply chain. The objective is to minimize stock-outs and costly production stoppages. The Co-managed Inventory Process is similar but more popular in the Manufacturer to Retailer model. Learn more.

5. Account Based Forecasting integrates the customer-specific collaborative plan into the national forecast and delivers an accurate sku-level plan to production. The customer break-down in the forecast can be leveraged to optimize inventories and service levels. Learn more.

6. S&OP. Sales and Operations Planning process helps the entire company to develop, understand and use a consensus forecast for operational Planning and enable a forum for understanding operational constraints and resolution to arrive at the agreed-upon operational Plan. Learn more.

VMI, CMI, CPFR and ABF are the different methodologies available for the manufacturer to collaborate with the customer. Which method to choose depends on the customer, the data availability, systems infrastructure as well as the information needs of the collaboration process. These processes may be mapped out in a continuum of increasing complexity and benefits.

Forecasting Practices Chart

We can help you optimize over these considerations and choose the right model of collaborative relationship. For more details, please contact us.