Blog

The Benefit of Process Modeling in IBP Gain the Insights Necessary to Ensure Your Process Tasks Proceed on Schedule By Ryan Rickard, Director SCMO2 Process management in IBP helps you manage and track your supply chain processes and enables collaboration throughout the organization. Breaking down those barriers to communication and information introduces new levels ofRead more

Start with a Stat Forecast. And Start Strong! Set a Strong Baseline Forecast Up Front, and Revisit Often to Maintain Accuracy By Ryan Rickard, Director SCMO2 If you spend a lot of time in your demand planning cycle manually entering and adjusting your forecast, then start strong! If you manually enter other inputs you receiveRead more

Understanding your Business’ Variability Knowing the Difference Between Natural Seasonal Variability and Forecast Variability By Ryan Rickard, Director SCMO2 Understanding your business’ variability matters! To effectively manage your supply chain and know your forecast potential, it is important to understand your demand variability. Analyzing your historical demand and historical forecast performance are two ways toRead more

The Power of Scenario Planning in IBP A Real Life Business Example By Ryan Rickard, Director SCMO2 Scenario planning in IBP allows users to conduct what-if planning, analyze results, share planning activities with others and make business decisions, in real time, without impacting the live data set. Real-Life Example Let’s consider this common business situation.Read more

Going Big Bang is Not Necessary With an IBP Implementation Simply Transition and Add IBP Modules as Needed By Ryan Rickard, Director SCMO2 Upgrading and implementing SAP IBP has its perks, and a huge one is the flexibility to purchase and implement different modules of IBP over time as needed. This greatly relieves the stressRead more

Multiple Demand Streams are No Problem for IBP Accommodating the Complicated Myriad of Planning Exceptions By Ryan Rickard, Director SCMO2 Remember having long, drawn out discussions trying to decide which (single) date and order element should feed into the actuals/historical data stream when forecasting on a legacy platform? Thankfully those painful discussions are no longerRead more

The Struggle is Real—Discerning Realignment vs. Lifecycle Planning Consider Your Forecasting Purpose to Determine Which Process to Apply By Ryan Rickard, Director SCMO2 Have you ever found yourself trying to decide when to use SAP’s realignment functionality versus lifecycle planning? Typically you just want to leverage the data from a former planning object to helpRead more

Segmentation for Optimization! Using SAP IBP to Optimize your Forecasting Strategy using ABC/XYZ Analysis By Ryan Rickard, Director SCMO2 Most planning organizations approach and plan every forecasting combination the same way—by trying to tackle each combination every planning cycle. Most of the time demand planners can’t get to every combination each cycle, leading to manyRead more

Setting Reasonable Forecasting Expectations By Ryan Rickard, Senior Consultant SCMO2 Have you ever had a manager or business leader expect an 80% Forecast Accuracy? Or, as part of your performance review had a supervisor explain that current forecasting performance is at 48% and the goal is 75%? Has anyone in your business ever analyzed theRead more

Let Forecast Value Added be the Gift you Give your Organization By Ryan Rickard, Senior Consultant SCMO2 As we enjoy the hustle and bustle of this holiday season, most of us will take a few minutes to reflect on “all the things great” surrounding us. We’ll get to enjoy holiday parties and spend time withRead more