Category: Leadership

Leadership, Positive mindset

Habits and Social Brands that can change the world

Changing consumer habits to do social good is not a new idea. The Max Havelaar coffee label, the world first fair trade certification mark, was launched in 1988. Consumers could contribute to the living and working conditions of small farmers in disadvantaged regions by drinking a cup of coffee, for many a daily routine. Since then many fair trade and social brands have seen the … Continue reading Habits and Social Brands that can change the world

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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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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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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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Leadership, Positive mindset, S&OP

The 5th phase of S&OP maturity

This blog follows on an interesting discussion I had in the Tom Wallace S&OP group on LinkedIn. The discussion started because I didn’t necessarily agree with Tom’s statement: Successful S&OP = better teamwork To me it feels this formula makes some short cuts and the big assumption that better teamwork just appears because of S&OP. S&OP will definitely provide an opportunity for teams to work … Continue reading The 5th phase of S&OP maturity

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Leadership, S&OP

The right brain and S&OP: cornerstones to a collaborative culture

Collaboration is widely accepted to add value to a business network. Yet few companies will say they have truly a collaborative culture. The supply chain function and S&OP process can be catalysts to drive a collaborative company culture. For this to happen, the traditional left brain thinking supply chain organization has to start activating and using right brain skills and S&OP needs to start leading … Continue reading The right brain and S&OP: cornerstones to a collaborative culture

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