Getting the Best from Your Sales & Operation Process or Integrated Business Planning Process

5 Simple Questions That Can Change Everything

Want to improve your sales, operations, and business processes but don’t know where to start?

For decades, Oliver Wight has specialized in making businesses run better through advanced Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) and Integrated Business Planning (IBP).

Now, the Oliver Wight team is offering our guidance on making these planning processes work to their fullest potential.

Our white paper, Five Simple Questions: How to get the best from your S&OP or IBP process, will explain the five-question concept in full and help you integrate it into every step of the planning process.

This is a simple way to determine if your process answers the questions it must to set you on a path to success.

By the end of each S&OP or IBP review meeting you and your team should be able to answer the following:

1. How are we performing now? You should be able to identify what current goals your organization has met, as well as areas where you’re still falling short. As a part of this question, your team should examine what needs to happen to get back on track.
2. Is the plan valid? For this question, review whether your strategy moving forward is realistic and if you believe the processes laid out will lead to the desired outcome.
3. Is the plan sufficient? Does your new plan address the areas of improvement you’re looking for? If there are any additional measures necessary, now is the time to put them to paper.  
4. What if? Determine if your plan has any sensitivities that will require “what-if” analysis or a contingency plan. After a year in which the COVID-19 pandemic turned the global economy on its head, having fallbacks in place is more essential than ever. 
5. What is needed to deliver the plan that is not already in place? This is the stage at which your team identifies the resources and team alignment necessary to make your goals a reality. Examine the hard decisions that will need to be made down the road, and get on the same page from the start.

The Five Questions Unbundled

A key design feature of best practice Integrated Business Planning meetings is the use of a business segment or 'family' sheet that allows for effective visualization and understanding of the plans for appropriate aggregates of the business.

The family sheets should therefore be structured to ensure the Five Questions can be answered. It isn't essential that the Five Questions are asked explicitly, but they must be fundamental to the structure of the information pack prepared for each review, and in the presentations and discussions during the meeting.

They should provide the very foundation for each of the family sheets and all the major segments of the business plan. 

Ready to learn more? S&OP/IBP can impact every part of your business, increasing efficiency and achieving industry best practices at every level.

Download Five Simple Questions: How to get the best from your S&OP or IBP process and learn how to ensure that these essential programs have the greatest impact.

Related Resource

How to Get the Best from Your S&OP or IBP Process
In this white paper, we discuss a series of five questions - simple 'must-haves', which can be applied to any organization and which can be used in each of the five IBP review meetings to ensure they address the key issues facing the business in a standardized way, validate the plans and make required decisions. Download Now!

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More Resources from Oliver Wight

Webinar | Do-It-Yourself Integrated Business Planning: How to Save a Failing Process

Webcast | How Good is your Sales and Operations Planning Process?

Education | Integrated Business Planning (Advanced S&OP) Course