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What is S&OP?

ERP Connectivity Team

Sales & Operation Planning (S&OP) is a business process that combines various departmental plans into one integrated business strategy. The aim of S&OP is to meet customer demand while quickly identifying and assessing challenges, controlling inventory costs, and improving customer satisfaction. This process is typically managed monthly, with the entire planning team coming together to create a coordinated plan.

IBP: One Seamless Process for S&OP

The Blue Ridge solution for S&OP is the Integrated Business Planning (IBP) module. The IBP program builds one seamless management process integrated with Demand, Supply, Replenishment, and Financial Planning.

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By combining IBP best practices, an effective IBP governance structure and an IBP platform optimized to meet an organization’s requirements, supply chain agility is within reach, as are the associated benefits.

The first, and probably the most important benefit, is that robust and thorough planning helps your business achieve a stronger bottom line. When every part of your company works together through S&OP, you create an environment where people, processes, and technology come together, leading to higher productivity and profitability.

Secondly, when your entire organization works toward a common planning goal, you’re sure to achieve better communication across all departments and locations. Everyone will be on the same page, and you’ll have built-in ways for various departments to give each other feedback and help one another to align to your overall goals.

Next, a thorough and ongoing analysis of your business goals and methods can help with better decision-making. It’s inevitable that disruptions will happen no matter how well you plan, and you’ll need to make important decisions on the fly. When you have all the data and research from your S&OP available at your fingertips, these difficult decisions become more straightforward.

Finally, once you’ve implemented an S&OP process, you’ll find that subsequent S&OPs become easier. Each time your team comes together to plan and forecast for the next month, they can build on the data and insights gained from prior months. Effective decisions are more easily executed across your enterprise, truly driving integrated business planning with greater executive team alignment. A more efficient planning process means a clearer understanding of your business with less difficulty in getting there.

IBP Intelligence and Automation at Your Fingertips

At Blue Ridge, we want to help your business achieve these results and more with the most insightful and complete data available. Our Integrated Business Planning solution builds upon S&OP and offers a robust dashboard broken down into simplified charts and graphs that make it easy to align and unify all parts of your business.

S&OP and offers a robust dashboard broken down into simplified charts and graphs that make it easy to align and unify all parts of your business.

Our business forecasting software is the perfect blend of intelligence and automation to bring you visible, actionable insights and measurable results. By offering complete and accurate real-time data, Blue Ridge enables you to craft a consensus operational plan for your business that ensures accountability and communication across functional silos.

Do you want improved forecast accuracy, greater inventory turns, fewer stockouts, better service levels, and rapid results? Schedule a 30-minute call with a supply chain planning expert to learn how we can help.

The Best Supply Chain Planning Solution

Not all supply chain planning software is created equal. Blue Ridge Global is focused on delivering intelligent, accurate, easy-to-use software that helps you accomplish your inventory goals quickly. We offer all of the features mentioned above and more. Request a demo of our solution and see what we can do together.