Last Updated: January 12, 2021
In June, the Prevedere team attended the 11th annual Best of the Best S&OP Conference, presented by APICS and the Institute of Business Forecasting and Planning (IBF) in Chicago.
At the conference, three major themes were on the minds of the country’s top sales and operations planning professionals:
- S&OP departments are realizing the need to modernize and demonstrate value to leadership
- A.I. is becoming more important as its applications within large organizations grow – forcing the development of company-wide best practices
- The larger the company, the more external forces need to be considered
S&OP Modernization + Optimization = Value
Under increasing review, S&OP professionals face growing pressure to demonstrate results to executives keen to cut costs and improve margins.
Sometimes teams lack the organization, resources or manpower to accomplish tasks like implementing predictive analytics into their planning process. However, many are recognizing that predicting future trends, and adjusting plans to match, has more potential to add value than any other activity a business can perform, and are prioritizing predictive analytics implementation to optimize their companies’ performance.
For companies that do not have a defined S&OP process, predictive analytics can be a helpful springboard. For more well-developed teams with existing practices, they can be the key to modernization and success.
A.I. and predictive analytics are developing best practices within large organizations
Practical business applications of A.I. and predictive analytics is quickly evolving in S&OP, but many organizations have yet to settle on how this technology should be applied.
Thankfully, because this technology has such a wide range of applications, from supply chain optimization to financial planning to marketing, it can be a catalyst for company-wide conversations about how to optimize processes for improved collaboration and performance.
Third-party solutions like Prevedere are particularly helpful because they can provide a reliable, unbiased baseline that all departments can reference.
External forces are being discussed more than ever
The world is constantly changing, and modern global sales and operations teams need business intelligence solutions that are smarter and faster.
It is becoming clear that, to stay ahead of the competition, S&OP teams need to become proactive vs. reactive. They need to be able to predict with greater frequency what external drivers may affect their performance.
That level of insight requires a solution – like Prevedere – that draws from numerous external data sources, coupled with key internal historical data, and has the power to analyze many possible outcomes.
To learn more about the future of business intelligence, download this report developed by Prevedere in partnership with Microsoft and Dr. Barry Keating, professor of economics and business analytics at the University of Notre Dame, to describe the critical turning point currently facing S&OP teams.