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| Total Unique Visitors: 59052 |
| Visitors Out: 959 |
| Total Visitors Out: 959 |
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| Kicking Out the Ladder |
| 2009-03-03 07:27:15 |
Now is the time to set high goals - and achieve them! The Japanese phrase "kicking the ladder" examplifies what is required in these times - climbing to the top and hanging on even after the ladder has been pulled away. The closes phrase in American English is borrowed from NASA - Failure is Not an Option!...
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| Now is the Time to Innovate! |
| 2009-03-03 07:04:06 |
This is the second recession since Steelwedge was founded. The first was as the beginning of the “new century” and was prompted by the telecom crash and dotcom bust. While that recession was mild in comparison to what we face today, the combination of a technology crash, a significant recession, and a generation of business leaders who had spent most of their professional lives in a long run of wild exuberance made life pretty difficult for software companies....
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| The Chips are Down, Now What? |
| 2009-03-03 06:32:03 |
With each passing day, the news seems to get worse - Chip makers faced a 29% drop in demand in January, PC makers are suffering, Dell continues to cut-back, Spansion files for Chapter 11. Now what?...
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| “Lean Times Beget Fresh Fashion Ideas” |
| 2009-02-18 13:58:12 |
Below is a brief excerpt from an article published in today's Wall Street Journal.
One might ask - how is this relevant to a blog on Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP)?
Not only do lean times beget new, and innovative fashion ideas - but they also beget new and innovative ways to run your business! Now is the time to think long and hard about tough questions? Do my planning processes meet the demands of today's rapidly changing environment? Are planning decisions based on facts? Is the information I use to make strategic decisions involving sales promotions, inventory, sales strategy and operational capacity timely? Am I looking at and optimizing my decisions based on the "Big Picture" ? Do I have an efficient system for managing the automation process (such as the purpose-built Executive S&OP solution developed by Steelwedge Software)? Am I using the valuable information inside my system ecosystem - tracking opportunities inside Salesforce.com, analyzing de...
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| Best Practice: Attribute Based Planning in Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) |
| 2009-02-16 00:53:30 |
Attributes are often used as a way to plan the supply and demand of products that are built-to-order or required to meet complicated engineering specifications.
Examples include configured products includes servers (disk drives, processor type, etc), network switch (type, size, capacity, memory), electrical items (different voltages, capacities and fittings), and chemical products (formula).
Engineered products drive higher margins and premium prices because they meet the specific needs of customers and resist the profit-eroding effects of products which are commodities. Steelwedge customers use attributes not only for Demand and Supply Planning but also for S&OP....
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| The Analyst’s view of Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) |
| 2009-02-16 00:20:42 |
Improving Sales and Operations Planning
An important objective in implementing sales and operations planning (S&OP) is to take the typically silo-ed supply chain planning function and integrate it into other, related planning functions in an organization. Planning must be a collaborative effort because unilateral decisions are not communicated well, leading to a lack of coordination. The classic example is when marketing fails to inform manufacturing of upcoming promotions soon enough (if at all), leading to stock-outs of promoted items and unwanted inventories elsewhere. Planning collaboratively also enables companies to resolve trade-offs where the “right” decision might not be obvious. For example, “Should our first priority be to reduce inventories and generate cash flow or to push more profitable items to increase reported earnings?”
During the past year, all of the major analyst firms have started tracking Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) closely. Why...
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| Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) in a world of Cloud Computing |
| 2009-02-12 17:29:30 |
Last year, 100% of Steelwedge Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) solutions were delivered on a "SaaS" (Software-as-a-Service or OnDemand) basis - in other words, they were delivered "in the cloud." Our partners and prospects frequently ask us why? The simple response is that it is what our customers asked. However, the broader question is why is this happening? The strategic answer is that the nature of computing is going through a sea change and that change is being accelerated by the current economic crisis....
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| Some thoughts on S&OP Best Practices |
| 2009-02-10 10:59:13 |
Decades of experience with planning systems has shown that detailed planning and execution systems do not work to to their full capability without integrated monthly sales and operations planning process and solution. S&OP systems such as the Steelwedge S&OP solution ensure that demand and supply plans are balanced at the family level, volume level, dollar [...]...
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| Executive Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP): Navigating the Economic Storm |
| 2009-02-08 19:03:15 |
Real-time visibility and communication—the cornerstones to navigating through an economic downturn.
A recent McKinsey Quarterly study identified optimized performance management as a potential opportunity to realize short-term revenue and efficiency gains in a slowing economy. The study cites the case of a telco that increased margins by 15 to 20 percent by integrating siloed data and [...]...
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| Why can’t I use our Financial Planning System for S&OP? |
| 2009-02-08 16:34:31 |
Why can't my financial planning system be used for Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP)? This is a question I am asked regularly...
It is also the reason why Sanjay Poonen, Senior Vice President of SAP's POA (performance optimization application) group which includes SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation) as well as other top executives at SAP's Business Applications Group (which includes APO, CRM and ERP) have recently reached out to Steelwedge Softare for assistance....
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