The process for making key tactical business decisions
S&OP originated as a tactical meeting to balance demand and supply. In the past decennium S&OP has however developed into a multi disciplinary business process, in which all critical functions agree a joint action plan to achieve the company’s strategic objectives.
The importance of S&OP
Many companies recognise the importance of S&OP, but are still struggling to run a sustainable process that delivers tangible results. Often S&OP evolves into a highly operational meeting, in which Marketing and Sales only participate in case of severe customer service issues. The advantages of such a process will be negligible. It is therefore crucial that besides Supply Chain, at least Marketing, Sales, Finance and Operations are integral parts of S&OP and consider it the process in which all key tactical business decisions are made.
Involvation's S&OP approach
Involvation has therefore developed a five step approach, which encompasses both process design and Change Management aspects.
Prerequisite for a successful S&OP implementation is a positive outcome of the “Board engagement” workshop, in which unanimous commitment is given to the project and in which the results that S&OP must deliver are signed off. The change project ends with a Health Check, which assesses the quality of the implemented S&OP process.
Change Management
The success of an S&OP implementation is driven by the process design, but even more by the quality of the Change Management. Involvation therefore considers this as an integral part of any project and has adopted the eight phases of Kotter. Additionally, we regularly apply business simulations; for S&OP The Fresh Connection has proven to be an excellent tool to make the importance of functional alignment crystal clear.
S&OP Maturity Scan
In order to determine the quality of your current S&OP process, Involvation has developed an S&OP Maturity Scan. With this scan you will get a clear picture of your S&OP process in a very short time frame, including an overview of all strengths and weaknesses. Please contact info@involvation.nl for more information about the S&OP Maturity Scan.
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