Ideas on S&OP and IBP, straight from the books.
Perhaps the most important principle in Integrated Business Planning is that the entire organization operates from a single, agreed-upon set of numbers. There is no "sales version" and "operations version" of the plan — there is one plan, owned jointly by the business, and all functional plans must reconcile to it.
Read the BookClassic S&OP asks: can we make what we plan to sell? Integrated Business Planning asks a bigger question: are we making the right decisions to achieve our strategic and financial objectives, and what are the trade-offs? That shift — from feasibility to strategy — is what separates a mature planning process from a scheduling exercise.
Read the BookPortfolio comes before Demand because product decisions are upstream of what the market can even be asked about. Demand comes before Supply because a forecast already constrained by "what supply can deliver" isn't a demand plan — it's a supply plan in disguise. Skipping a step, or running them out of order, doesn't produce a faster cycle. It produces a worse plan.
Read the BookIs it predictable — same calendar week, same agenda, every month? Does everyone work from one source of truth? Do meetings produce decisions instead of status updates? And does the process retrospect and improve itself? Four honest questions separate a real S&OP discipline from a set of recurring calendar events.
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