Blog

Choosing the Right Project Management Approach for Implementing IBP How to Decide Among Many Flavors, Each of Which Gives a Different Taste to the Process By Robert Birdsall, Director SCMO2 What project management approach should you use when implementing IBP? It’s a simple question and one we ask every client to consider carefully. There areRead more

Focus on the Future! But As-Is Still Matters. Ignore Your Current-State, and You Risk Sending Your Future-State Off Track By Robert Birdsall, Director SCMO2 Roughly 60% of our clients take the time during project preparation to stress that they don’t want to recreate the past. Rather, they want to focus on the future state. CertainlyRead more

The Five Must-Have Traits of a Superstar Consultant How to Identify the Best of the Best So You Can Turbocharge Your Team. By Robert Birdsall, Director SCMO2 Nobody wants to be average, but by definition there are as many, if not more, mediocre consultants as there are superstars. As a client, it can be dauntingRead more

Four Great Ways to Screw Up Your IBP Project We’ve Seen Many Great Projects Go Awry. These are the Top Four Problems You Can Easily Avoid. By Robert Birdsall, Director SCMO2 There is a great tagline circulating in the world of advertising today. Farmer’s Insurance claims “We know a thing or two because we’ve seenRead more

The Consultants Left, So My Project is Done. Right? The Most Important Phase of Supply-Chain or Logistics-Related Projects is Often Skipped Entirely By Robert Birdsall, Director SCMO2 It’s surprising to me how many organizations believe supply-chain or logistics-related projects are done just because the technical pieces are complete. But they could not be more wrong.Read more

Starting Your First IBP Project? Why Experienced IBP Project Management is More Crucial Now Than Ever By Robert Birdsall, Director SCMO2 At SCMO2, we’ve had clients take on IBP as a DIY project, engaging us to provide trained consultants in a staff augmentation role. Most frequently we see this with clients that have experience inRead more

Help! Your Project is Done and Execs Want to See ROI Redefining Benefits and Value in Retrospect By Robert Birdsall, Director SCMO2 First – don’t panic. Generating a positive ROI is the whole purpose for your project in the first place, right? A proper assessment of benefits realization requires that you employ five key disciplinesRead more

Yes! You CAN Still Get More Value Out of Your APO Solution. Transitioning to a New Platform is Inevitable, but You Don’t Have to Throw Away APO Just Yet. By Robert Birdsall, Director SCMO2 At SCMO2, we find quite a number of clients are not yet ready to throw away APO in favor of aRead more

15 Percent Failure Rate Exposed IBP Implementation Challenges By Robert Birdsall, Senior Manager SCMO2 It was my pleasure to take part in a recent IBP Bootcamp presented by SCMO2 and SAP Insider. This seminar covered SAP IBP and SAP Jam functionality through extensive use of demonstrations, exercises and presentations. One aspect of preparation is directlyRead more

SAP Has Found the Secret Sauce for IBP Collaboration By Robert Birdsall, Senior Manager SCMO2 SAP provides numerous reasons for using SAP Jam with its Integrated Business Planning (IBP) tool. But are there any reasons why you shouldn’t? We review the five most common objections in today’s post, and debunk each of them. #1 –Read more