Sales & Operations Planning

Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) consists of several steps, carried out in monthly or weekly meetings. The names and numbers of the steps might vary in each company’s planning process, but all have the following in common:

1. Data gathering: collecting existing forecasts and information on key variables, such as inventory, recent sales and cash on hand;
2. Demand planning: processes for analyzing, forecasting and influencing demand;
3. Production (supply) planning: assessing production and distribution capacity constraints;
4. Reconciliation: aligning demand and production plans, ensuring they meet financial targets and company objectives; and
5. Executive meeting: receiving final input from the S&OP team, reviewing the plan and approving the final version.

S&OP is often a component of integrated business planning (IBP), a more comprehensive and long-term planning process that collects the plans of every department and ties them to the company’s financial performance and strategy.

While S&OP is by far a process and not a technology, Outperform Planning can play an important role in automating the S&OP process and facilitating collaboration amongst sales, marketing, finance, and operations; making relevant data accessible and providing analytics and simulation by what-if scenarios all in ONE solution.