Onive Consulting has identified 4 factors that make the difference in successful implementation and execution of S&OP and IBP.
People
The road to the top of Business Planning is travelled by the employees of an organization. Lora Cecere, CEO of Supply Chain Insights, has concluded that a successful S&OP consists of 60% change management and organizational design 30% process design and 10% technological support.
People make the difference because they keep each other on their toes, because they give the right example and because they feel empowered to make decision. But also, because they trust each other and each other’s qualities, right through the barriers of functional silos. The implementation or improvement of S&OP or IBP process requires a large change in employees, both in behavior and in ways of working.
Onive believes that effectively training, educating and coaching all employees is the biggest success factor for a successful S&OP/IBP.
Process
Of course, it is important to make sure the process works. Meetings need to be planned at the right time. The right information needs to be shared by the right people. In order for this to work, a clear document needs to be made that describes who needs to be in what meeting and what decisions need to be made. One of the main goals of S&OP/IBP is to make decisions that benefit the entire company. The process therefore needs to be designed to generate these decisions. However, what that looks like differs from company to company.
Onive believes that designing the ’right’ process together is critical to ensure the sufficient level of support to the players in the process to make value adding decisions.
Performance
No company invest time and effort in the implementation and execution of IBP/S&OP without expecting something in return. Manufacturing Excellence expert Larry Fast[1] says it best; “S&OP absolutely foundational for operational excellence, for breaking down silos, for creating team culture and for taking much better care of our customers.”
Monitoring the progress on the implementation of the S&OP/IBP process is important to ensure an effective and robust process is delivered. However, defining and monitoring the realization of tangible results and desired performance is the basis for true progress.
Onive believes there needs to be a good balance between measuring process quality and measuring business results.
Sustainability
The design and implementation of a process and then the training and coaching of employees takes time and effort and therefore money. It is therefore tempting to stop the project as soon as the process ‘works’ and to just ‘get on with it’. However, when the ‘new process’ is not ‘our process’, chances are the organization relapses back toward the old way of working. At the same time your S&OP/IBP process will generate increasingly good results when it is part of the organization’s DNA and in every part of the organization.
That is why Onive does not stop at the participants of the meetings, but ensures the process is embedded in the entire organization.
Want to know more? Contact us.