Sales and Operations Planning & Integrating the Business

Overview:

Introduction:

This course is focused upon better business performance, through better planning and control of the business by top management. Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) is the traditional name for the process, although some have tried to introduce alternative titles, such as Integrated Business Management and SOFplan – Sales, Operations, and Financial Planning. The process is about ensuring that the top-level plans in the business – covering product management, sales, marketing, operations, resources, finance, engineering, human resources, IT – are all balanced to achieve the strategic plans of the organization, in the medium to long term.

Course Objectives:

At the end of this course the participants will be able to:

• Ensure that participants understand what Sales & Operations Planning.
• Explain the objectives of the process and the benefits that can be achieved.
• Describe the 5 phases of the monthly S&OP process, and to ensure that participants can recognize the appropriate people to be involved in each phase.
• Ensure that top management realizes S&OP is their process; they are responsible for making it work for them.
• Realize that it is the preparation performed by people below the top-level that allows the process to work effectively and efficiently.
• Prepare people to go back to their companies, ready to implement S&OP.
• Plan for those implementations to be a success in achieving improved business performance.

Targeted Audience:

• Financial Planners
• Cost Analysts
• Professional Advisers
• Account Personnel 
• Business Consultants
• Professionals who require a more in-depth understanding of integrated planning & budgeting techniques
• Accountants responsible for budget preparation & management reporting

Course Outlines:

Unit 1: Introduction to Sales & Operations Planning:

• Why do organizations need S&OP?
• Where does it fit in the hierarchy of ERP and Supply Chain systems?
• What are the benefits that can be achieved?
• Who does what?
• An introduction to the 5 step Sales & Operations Planning process.
• Step 1 of the process.
• Managing the product or service portfolio.
• New product introduction, phasing out old products.

Unit 2: The Demand Planning Phase:

• What is the overall objective of demand planning?
• The essential difference between forecasting and demand planning.
• The inputs to the demand planning process.
• The logic of demand planning.
• The outputs from demand planning – the data required to be passed on.
• Demand planning exercise.
• Demand planning & demand management.
• The demand planning meeting.

Unit 3: The Supply & Resource Planning Phase:

• What is the overall objective of supply and resource planning?
• The inputs to the supply planning process.
• The logic of supply planning.
• The outputs from supply planning – the data required to be passed on.
• The inputs to resource planning.
• The logic of resource planning.
• The outputs from resource planning – the data to be passed on.
• A supply and resource planning exercise.
• The supply & resource planning meeting.

Unit 4: The Integration and Reconciliation Phase:

• What must be integrated?
• What must be reconciled?
• Who must be involved?
• What is the agenda for the pre-S&OP meeting?
• The importance of the financial numbers.
• Identifying gaps between the budget and the S&OP numbers, and discussing potential action plans to close the gaps.
• Planning the agenda for the executive S&OP meeting.
• Publishing the information for senior management.

Unit 5: The Executive Sales & Operations Planning Meeting:

• Who must be involved? Who runs the meeting?
• The agenda for the S&OP meeting.
• The review of each family to consider the balance of demand and supply.
• The review of the overall financial numbers.
• Decisions to be taken, the minutes of the meeting.
• Identifying what can be improved in the next cycle.
• Beyond plant level S&OP.
• Software advances to support the process.