Diagnose your S&OP maturity with the Gartner 5-step roadmap.
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Supply Chain S&OP: Process Improvement
Drive More Business Value With Supply Chain S&OP
The sales and operations planning (S&OP) process can be challenging to supply chain planning leaders because of its cross-functional nature. Despite its importance to business success, the value of understanding the current state of supply chain S&OP maturity is often overlooked.
A mature supply chain S&OP process can expect significant returns, including increased revenue and profitability.
When preparing for a S&OP transformation, diagnosing capabilities, resources and priorities is a vital first step for supply chain planning leaders.
Download the Gartner roadmap to transform your supply chain S&OP into a real decision-making, action-oriented business planning process.
Discover the 5 levels of S&OP maturity
Diagnose the maturity of your S&OP process
Determine the steps to improve and advance to the next level of S&OP maturity
About Supply Chain S&OP
Sales and operations planning (S&OP) is a cross-functional business planning process that supports supply chain decision making to help manage demand and supply balancing. The S&OP process is focused on operational and tactical plans in the mid to long term that enables supply chain management to achieve a competitive advantage on a continuous basis.
Supply chain planning leaders often struggle to secure strong senior executive support for building an effective S&OP process because there is little to no understanding on how S&OP supports a resilient organization.
To develop a successful S&OP process that will ensure leadership buy-in, Gartner provides supply chain planning leaders with best practices to help them build a solid S&OP foundation.
Supply Chain S&OP FAQs
Why is S&OP important to the business?
The objective of S&OP is to create a forward-looking plan that considers forecast demand, projected supply, and financial objectives. By not having a forward-looking plan, supply chain organizations keep on reacting to what is coming, often sacrificing cost and profitability.
What is a common obstacle in achieving a mature S&OP process?
Early S&OP maturity lacks formal process steps, metrics, forward-looking views and cross-functional participation. This limits the ability to maximize opportunity and mitigate risk over the midterm and long-term horizons through profitable trade-offs for the successful execution of the business strategy.
How can supply chain planning leaders advance S&OP maturity?
To advance S&OP maturity, supply chain planning leaders should engage and involve their finance partners to drive integration between S&OP and financial planning processes.