‘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!
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
A day after I came back from my holidays , I got an sms from a friend that triggered me. The sms said; ‘Just spend last month abroad with the MD – he’s in trouble. Business has collapsed and IBP didn’t see it coming’. My friend works for a company with brands everybody in the world knows and it just might be one of the … Continue reading 6 social media lessons for IBP
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
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
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
In January 2014 it was 5 years ago that I arrived in Australia from the Netherlands. As I did several times before, I quit my job, moved country and started a new job. An approach that is not always helpful if you want to climb the corporate ladder, but it is great for getting new ideas and new life experiences that feeds curiosity and the … Continue reading A journey of 30 blogs on S&OP
I’ve seen it before and I’ll probably see it again, but it still takes me by surprise every time. In the last 6 months I’ve observed two 2 billion $ well-respected FMCG companies with some very well-known world brands make the same mistake with IBP. First they build up the burning platform for IBP. Their customer service levels are not up to scratch, waste levels … Continue reading It’s a complex business process, STUPID!
As a follow up from my last blog on the right brain chasm in supply chain and S&OP, you can find here my presentation on Changing & sustaining S&OP from the March 2013 Australian S&OP conference. A quick guide to go with this presentation. The biggest change required for proper S&OP or in general for agile decision making is horizontal thinking. Information never sits in one function, … Continue reading Leading in changing and sustaining S&OP
Earlier this year I spoke at the Australian S&OP forum 2013. On the first day of this event, Oliver Wight spoke on the evolution of S&OP and they discussed the ‘chasm’ in S&OP. The term ‘the chasm’ comes from the book ‘Crossing the chasm’ by Geoffrey Moore. Moore used the chasm to describe the difficulty in a (product) lifecycle go from early adopters or visionaries … Continue reading The right brain chasm in supply chain and S&OP
Supply Chain Trend 