Oliver Wight Americas Announces Availability of the White Paper Demand Review: Tell the Story by Colleen “Coco” Crum

Oliver Wight Americas Announces Availability of the White Paper Demand Review: Tell the Story by Colleen “Coco” Crum

Oliver Wight Americas today announced the availability of a new white paper, Demand Review: Tell the Story, by Colleen “Coco” Crum, advising clients implementing Integrated Business Planning (Advanced S&OP) to understand and adopt a true aggregate planning process and redesign their Demand Review.

New London, NH July 25, 2013

Demand Review White PaperIn this white paper, the newest in the Oliver Wight series of informative guides on industry best practices, Crum presents a case study about a company attempting to implement IBP based on a 24-month planning horizon, while really only planning for the next quarter. Crum argues that the demand planners simply allowed the statistical forecast to compute the item-level projections but failed to take into account that brand and product plans might change over time. They were also unaware of the sales organization’s plans to grow the business.

“It is easy to tell when a company views demand planning as part of the supply chain planning process rather than the demand management process because it is typically described as forecasting,” Crum said. “It is not unusual for the supply chain management team to blame the sales and marketing organization for forecast errors, only to hear sales and marketing counter with, ‘It was not my plan; it was the supply chain management organization’s plan,’” she said.

Crum shows how, with the help of Oliver Wight Americas, the company redesigned its Demand Review and developed an aggregate demand planning process. The redesign started with the sales and marketing executive team discussing how it desired to view demand, customer plans, sales plans, and brand and product plans. This white paper provides guidance for structuring the Demand Review to tell the demand story. Please view this white paper.

About the Author

Colleen “Coco” Crum, a principal with Oliver Wight since 1996, is a thought leader and innovator in demand management, sales and operations planning, and integrated business planning. She has helped develop methodologies enabling companies to successfully implement these processes and achieve quick time-to-financial benefit. She has assisted companies across the manufacturing spectrum, including chemicals, paper, consumer goods, food and beverages, electronics, biotechnology, medical devices, and aerospace and defense.

Coco has co-authored four books: The Transition From Sales and Operations Planning to Integrated Business Planning; Enterprise Sales and Operations Planning; Demand Management Best Practices; and Supply Chain Collaboration. She also participated in the development of a best practice model for grocery supply chain replenishment resulting in the publication of a book on ECR by Canadian food industry trade groups.

About Oliver Wight Americas

Oliver Wight Americas’ principals have been both thought leaders and hands-on practitioners in manufacturing for more than 40 years. As a global business management consulting and education firm, the company specializes in helping organizations work smarter, faster, and better than their competitors. Our principals are seasoned professionals who have real-world manufacturing experience. They are able to transfer this knowledge to the people at all levels of an organization, providing tools to help organizations internalize that knowledge and achieve a competitive advantage in the marketplace. The largest worldwide consultancy of its type, Oliver Wight has offices throughout Europe, North and South America, and the Asia/Pacific Region.