Background

Our client had experienced significant growth, both organically and through target acquisitions. The organisations' strategy and vision incorporated additional growth targets as well as achieving aggressive operational efficiencies. Existing management and control processes required refreshing and consolidation in order to support future growth plans.

Challenge

• Different businesses withing the retail group had different levels of planning and process maturity.
• The businesses and brands were using different forecasting and planning systems ranging from best of breed to ERP systems to spread sheets.
• The management processes used to coordinate planning and operations were not fully integrated and aligned across all functions of the organisation.

Approach

A project was commissioned aimed at designing an organisation-wide Sales and Operations Planning process:

• A comprehensive gap analysis of existing planning activity was conducted comparing the organisations' current activities against industry best practice.
• This analysis was then overlaid with the clients' unique requirements across the following dimensions:
  • At Brand level
  • At Division level
  • At Group Functional Level (eg Logistics, Planning)
• Key business representatives were interviewed at executive and operational levels to identify unique requirements and blockers to success.
• Meeting structures, reporting, inputs and outputs were determined.
• Executive workshops were conducted to review and educate on the S&OP design outcomes.

Outcome

A detailed S&OP process was designed taking in to account the unique requirements of the retail group:

• Meetings were tailored around the specific needs of various functions, for example, warehousing and logistics.
• Broad measures were defined and agreed which provide the ability to report consistently across business and group.
• Meeting agendas including participants, meeting inputs and meeting outputs were agreed.
• A S&OP handbook was developed that included best practice S&OP guidance as well as meeting agendas and suggested high-level measures.
• Implementation options were also proposed. These options were based on risk, benefit, implementation timeframe and on-going sustainability considerations.