Procurement and supply chain have always been strange bedfellows in manufacturing organizations. There's a rather arbitrary dividing line between activities, which, academically speaking, should not exist in the first place, such as balancing inventory/order size with cost and risk.
The problem with many sales and operations planning efforts is that they don't match the "cadence" of all functions within a business, says Marko Pukkila, research director with Gartner Supply Chain Research.
A good sales and operations planning process is vital to the fortunes of many companies today. But success in implementing it has been elusive. Seema Phull, principal with NorthFind Partners, explains why.