Best Practices for Sales and Operation Planning in 2022

Companies that implement S&OP reveal benefits that strongly support their objectives and achievement. How to make better use of S&OP? What is the S&OP basic purpose and key benefits? How Streamline helps to make this process more mature?

The S&OP process

The company can have a strict navigation plan for a year but there are changing situations that this company may face like demand and supply problems. The S&OP provides visibility and alignment where the company is aiming and the plan how to get there. It may look like: Planned course >> New real position >>Forecast error >> New course plan/New Forecast.

These are the common elements that you need to use for your model:

Here S&OP helps to gain efficiency at every step of this model.

Benefits of using Streamline AI for S&OP

To achieve a resilient S&OP plan, more and more companies are relying on advanced data analytics and AI-enabled software tools. That is exactly what Streamline works for. These are several aspects in favor of Streamline:

In the traditional model, the company spends 80% of time on data modeling using ERP, Excel or the combination of ERP and Excel. So 20% is left for analysis and actions. While using Streamline AI, we have 100% for analysis and actions without data modeling.

1. Large data and real time visibility. Streamline allows to deal with large amount of data which is integrated and the processing is very fast. The project can be updated in a few seconds.Streamline has a server and web application that can help to incorporate and give visibility to suppliers.

2. Demand forecasting accuracy increase. AI is to understand what is economically achievable for a company in terms of demand forecasting. While using Streamline, departing from this demand forecast, all the downstreams are integrated in the calculations.

3. Turnover risk integration. Streamline allows users to enter a formal system that is easy to handle. Sometimes companies have big experts who know the company very well and they make beautiful Excel spreadsheets but when the person is gone, the process sometimes falls. So here the turnover risk is mitigated because another person can enter the formal system which is easy to maintain.

4. Instant dynamic simulations. Streamline allows users to change the information directly in the platform and make alternative plans, analyzing what if something changes. So it is possible to play with alternative scenarios and see what the impact would be if some situations change.

The bottom line

Sales and operations planning is an integrated planning process that aligns demand, supply and financial planning. Streamline AI can help to build an effective strategy for S&OP implementation and make S&OP process more mature.