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Here’s the accepted definition of Integrated Business Planning (Advanced S&OP) which reflects best practices:
Companies have been achieving improved business performance for close to three decades by implementing and operating with an integrated business management process known as Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP). A significant number of companies have led the evolution of S&OP from fundamental demand and supply balancing to an integrated strategic deployment and management process. This evolving process is known as Integrated Business Planning (IBP).
Oliver Wight pioneered Sales and Operations Planning in the 1980s and continues to play the role of thought leader in helping companies to transition to Integrated Business Planning. We know what it takes to operate an Integrated Business Planning process as the way to run and manage a business.
Here are some resources to get you started:
We use a FastTrack Proven Path methodology for accelerating the time it takes to implement Integrated Business Planning or Sales and Operations Planning. Our approach focuses on developing the executive and middle management teams to effectively design, implement, and operate the process. Oliver Wight Principals also provide guidance using S&OP software tools to develop executive views of the business. Finally, we provide coaching and mentoring to ensure that the process continues to mature and continues to provide substantial financial and operational improvements to the company.
This approach enables companies to implement Integrated Business Planning quickly – within three months – and to sustain the process year after year. To learn more, attend this Integrated Business Planning (Advanced S&OP) course.
One way to start is with an Oliver Wight Executive Briefing. This Briefing is a one-day awareness-raising session for senior leadership. The leadership team gains a clear understanding of what could be gained in terms of operational and financial performance improvements from improving or implementing an Integrated Business Planning process. The leadership teams also gain an understanding of their role and accountabilities in the process.
Another first step in the FastTrack Proven Path methodology is a Diagnostic Review. We spend two days reviewing your Sales and Operations Planning or Integrated Business Planning process. The diagnostic culminates with feedback for the leadership team.
During the diagnostic feedback session, we provide our findings, provide high-level education on what Integrated Business Planning is and is not, and provide insight on how your process and the results the process generates compares to other companies. We also facilitate a discussion with the executive team on the opportunity to improve company performance by operating the business using an integrated management approach. For more information on an executive briefing or a diagnostic review, contact an Oliver Wight representative to begin your diagnostic review.
FastTrack implementation methodology requires behavior change which can be achieved through a better understanding of Integrated Business Planning. Read about elements of a successful implementation in this article by David Goddard.
Twenty questions you should ask... and the answers you should expect.
The FastTrack Integrated Business Planning (Advanced Sales and Operations Planning) program is designed to help you achieve: Improved Cash Flow, Integration of Strategy into Daily Operations, Better Utilization of Assets, Supply Chain Alignment to Market Demands, On-Time New Product Introduction, Superior Customer Service - fast.
Two day course on Integrated Business Planning (Advanced S&OP).
Oliver Wight’s new white paper, How Good Is Your Sales and Operations Planning/Integrated Business Planning Process?, by James Correll and George Palmatier, contends that the magic to successful S&OP/IBP is that regular, routine realignment and synchronization of all functional plans brings simultaneous improvement in those functional areas and that many organizations are not getting the available bottom-line results from the process. The authors present a 10-question survey that enables assessing the quality of a company’s S&OP/IBP process. Each question is scored on a scale from 0 to 5, and readers can tally their own score to judge the health of their S&OP/IBP process. The point system is based on the authors’ more than 35 years of experience, as well as the results of numerous independent surveys. Correll and Palmatier explain the point ranges and the organizational impact at each level.
Integrated Business Planning (Advanced S&OP): An Executive Level Synopsis
The integrated management process known as Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) has evolved over three decades. In recent years it has taken a major evolutionary step for many companies that have realized the need for, and the benefits of, operating with one integrated management process. Integrated Business Planning is the name many companies are using to describe a strategic management process integrating all the functional elements of the business, picking up where traditional S&OP leaves off. This paper discusses the integrated management process known as Sales and Operations Planning and its more mature version, Integrated Business Planning. It is written to give management and leadership a quick synopsis of this integrated strategic management process.
How to Leverage Longer Planning Horizons in Integrated Business Planning (Advanced S&OP)
In a global economy with increasing volatility and uncertainty, implementing the right planning horizon is critical. This white paper explains how Integrated Business Planning (IBP) with a rolling planning horizon of 24 months or longer provides early visibility of gaps between the annual bottom-up plan and the top-down strategic goals – vital data that empowers the leadership team to take timely action to close the gaps.
New white paper explains how middle market companies are developing financial discipline and managing and sustaining the right growth. It’s a proven process that is not reserved for only big companies. Oliver Wight’s Eric Deutsch and Aditya Sobti share insights on how to get started.
This white paper details Robert Hirschey’s experience in using aggregate planning to keep executives “out of the weeds” and focused on the “big picture.” Hirschey has worked as an executive at both the operating and strategic levels.
When the executive mindset and skills for aggregate planning are lacking, company leaders experience detail dysfunction. They lose sight of the “big picture.”
Hirschey describes how to use multiple-level planning to combat detail dysfunction. He explains the fundamentals of aggregate planning and the role of Integrated Business Planning in performing aggregate planning.
Multiple-level planning helps to ensure the right people make decisions at the right level. Ultimately the decisions made at the strategic and tactical levels should drive what is made and sold at the execution level.
“Execution should not drive strategy and tactics. Strategy and tactics should drive execution, but all three need to be tied together,” Hirschey writes.