Supply chain executives often spend sleepless nights trying to find ways of making their businesses forecastable and similar to best-in-class companies. That’s why they use ibp software to get real-time data about market demands and trends.
However, this information alone may not be enough to create a robust demand planning performance. To ensure that customers are happy, store managers are productive, and the company has stock, more has to be done. By enhancing demand planning performance, companies can gain more profits and be more productive.
In this article, you’ll learn some tips for improving this metric.
- Focus On Objectives
There’s a law in life and business which says, if you try to do several things at once, you’ll end up doing none. If your company has a long list of goals, chances are you’ll confuse your team and muddle your projects. Instead, it’s advisable to select one or two main objectives and focus on achieving them.
For example, if you’re running a restaurant, you may have a demand planning objective centred on driving traffic rather than have many goals covering profit margins, repeat visits, and market share.
- Unite Your Teams
To achieve a specific demand planning objective, your supply chain and marketing teams need to speak a similar language. A demand planning software may help to automate things and lessen human involvement in the supply chain process. But teams play a critical part, and if they’re affected by poor communication or myopic perspectives, chances are your project may fail.
Develop a channel of formal interaction between your marketing, supply chain, and research teams before, during, and after a project rollout. Also, train your employees on the importance of each other’s roles. Doing this will not only help you meet deadlines, but it’ll also enhance accuracy and teamwork.
- Engage Stakeholders In Demand Planning
To come up with a strong demand planning strategy, don’t limit the process to yourself. Instead, encourage a collaborative process and engage trading partners and other stakeholders in the planning.
Some company owners prefer protecting their information. While this may offer a false sense of security, it creates unforeseen roadblocks and unnecessary barriers. When manufacturers, distributors, and retailers openly share information, everyone’s profits increase.
- Understand Your CFO
The analytical skills and responsibilities of the current CFO can help you to drive cross-functional execution. A great CFO offers excellent expertise in logistics, technology, and risk management. These are the factors that you require for a streamlined supply chain operation.
CFOs also boost increased business involvement and the ability to predict accurate profitability. Additionally, they have tools that enable supply chain managers to understand and reduce risks and enhance cash flows.
- Network
A supply chain network can develop economies of scale in storage, loading, and shipping processes. It may make your trading partners lower costs, boost reaction time, and be flexible in responding to changing customer demands.
Final Words
The success of your supply chain department depends on a robust demand planning performance strategy. Fortunately, you can improve this performance by following these tips. The best part of doing this is that it’ll make your company and employees more productive and help you gain more profits.