Sales and operations planning is the cornerstone of being demand-driven and a foundational process to propel growth strategies. As companies drive growth-growth in the innovation of new products, growth through expansion into new geographies, and growth in core markets-they must align functions through S&OP.

The S&OP process should be complemented by a strong root cause analysis and execution framework that ensures that the S&OP plan is continuously tracked with respect to the financial goals set forth by the company. In other words, the S&OP lifecycle should precede the financial reporting lifecycle of a company and should be in lock-step.

High-tech organizations have evolved their supply chains that specialized in flow of materials into supply-demand networks where information flow is more critical to manage. This has resulted in high-tech supply chains to be asset lite and information heavy. There is a need to cash this information into tangible business value through the creation of a flexible and responsive supply chain.

Supply chain executives in the process industry sector are primarily concerned with being able to drive volumes in accordance with previously established plans, as well as with maximizing utilization of assets. Asset-intensive manufacturing operations are a key common theme across process industries.

With an economy that is clearly headed south, forecasting and demand planning will require new thinking, processes and technologies to keep supply chains running smoothly and efficiently.