Author: Niels

Niels has 25 years of experience in supply chain and business planning and enjoy writing a thing or two every now and then.
Leadership, Positive mindset

Building the Mentally Tough organization

Mental toughness is a set of attributes that make people perform at their best under any circumstances. It is a personal and organizational capability that can effectively deal with today’s continuous changes and pressures. This article explains the mindset and attributes that make up mental toughness, how mental toughness can be measured and how to build mental tough organizations that increase performance. Practice makes perfect! … Continue reading Building the Mentally Tough organization

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Leadership, S&OP

The rise and fall of S&OP

There is no doubt that over the years, Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) has brought companies around the world many valuable business improvements. This article argues that after existing for over 30 years, the development of S&OP as an end to end business management process method has come to a standstill. This standstill is threatening the very existence of S&OP. The only way to further … Continue reading The rise and fall of S&OP

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Leadership, S&OP

How to bridge the Strategy to Execution gap

A business strategy is only as good as its execution. Still many businesses struggle to periodically align their strategy with their annual plans, performance and appraisal settings and execution. This contributes to a lack of employee engagement in strategy and a low success rate of strategy execution, which have been well documented over the years. To overcome the strategy to execution gap, executives may choose … Continue reading How to bridge the Strategy to Execution gap

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Leadership, S&OP

The main reason why S&OP implementations fail!

‘If you don’t know where you’re going, you might not get there‘, Yogi Berra, a famous baseball player famously said. Berra knew how to achieve and win, appearing in 21 world series and winning 13 of them. He was elected to the baseball hall of fame in 1972 (Wikipedia). If we want to achieve something, we usually define our goals, measurements and targets. We usually … Continue reading The main reason why S&OP implementations fail!

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S&OP

7 S&OP insights from the 2014 S&OP pulse check

A big thanks to all participants who joined in this years pulse check. Attached you can find the results of the 2014 S&OP pulse check, the fourth of its kind. It gives an indication on S&OP maturity status and change drivers. An indication indeed, as one participants said; ‘it is a check up and not an autopsy’. My biggest insights, or shock should I say, … Continue reading 7 S&OP insights from the 2014 S&OP pulse check

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Leadership, S&OP

7 Steps to Build a Sustainable S&OP Culture

S&OP is a long term game, if not a never ending continuous improvement game. More than once, I’ve witnessed well working S&OP processes collapse within months after a merger, restructure, leadership change or other significant business changes. The process was working; people rocked up to meetings and had meaningful conversation. Information was on the table, some business decisions were made. Systems were working to support … Continue reading 7 Steps to Build a Sustainable S&OP Culture

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Supply Chain

How to find gold in Big Data

A CFO I worked for once famously said; ‘give me the golden nugget, don’t give me all the dirt’. What he meant is that although he knew the finance communicate navigates its way every month through a lot of data, he was only interested in key insights. Presented in an understandable way, without too many numbers please. Makes sense doesn’t it? Well not when we … Continue reading How to find gold in Big Data

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Leadership, S&OP

A perspective on collaboration and IBP

My last blog I wrote on the 5th phase of S&OP. That 5th phase refers to behavioural capability that is required to take S&OP beyond the process, systems, reporting and KPI’s S&OP practitioners usually talk about. I called that phase emotionally competent as that felt just about the right description for knowing yourself, your behaviours, controlling your behaviours and adapting your behaviours to different circumstances … Continue reading A perspective on collaboration and IBP

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