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Planning for Success

Failure to Plan is Planning for Failure

  • Planning leads to Organization

  • Organization enables Monitoring

  • Monitoring enables Effectiveness and Efficiency

Overview

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Before jumping into planning and implementing a cloud ERP, it is necessary to check your strategic business plans and tactical business plans. Also a proper planning group and schedule should be in place. 

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A strategic business plan specifies a strategy for marketing, sales, supply (vendors), production, inventory, distribution to your customers (distribution centers), and financing. It plans at least one year out. The strategic business plan will direct the tactical business plan.

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A tactical business plan specifies a tactical plan for the above business functions but, for about 13 weeks out. It determines what needs to be done for each above business function on a weekly basis. If the tactical plans are not met at all, they may have to be changed or the strategic plan may have to be changed.

 

The tactical plan will determine the set up of your ERP.

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The actuals (KPIs) of your daily ERP transactions have to be compared with the planning KPI numbers of your tactical plans. If the variance is too big, either the tactical plan has to be changed or the daily operations have a problem that needs to be fixed. 

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We will discuss the strategic business planning and tactical business planning below in more detail.

Strategic Business Planning

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Strategic business plans determines the strategy for each major business function, and address the mainly the following questions:

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  • Marketing strategy

    • ​Market segments​​ targeted

      • Which market segments are we targeting? Why (projected sales and cost, required minimum capital, our core strenghts/expertise, needed additional investment, cost/b​enefit analysis)? Timing of market segment entry?

    • Product strategy

      • Which product portfolio? Why (analysis as above)? Timing

    • Pricing strategy

      • Low pricing entry or normal pricing entry? For which products? When? Why?​

    • Marketing channels strategy

      • Which ones: website, tradeshows​, seminars, social media, magazines, .. . Why?

    • Marketing team strategy

      • How many people? Outsourcing? ​

  • Sales​​ Strategy

    • Direct and/or indirect?​ Why?

      • Direct: inside and/or outside sales team​

      • Indirect: partner/distributor/dealer requirements, training program, dealer margins, ..

    • Sales commission strategy

    • Sales branches: if so, where, how many sales people per branch, why? 

    • Demand planning for one year out

  • Purchasing/Supply Chain​ strategy (Master Supply Plan)

    • Which items to purchase and/or to manufacture? Why?

    • Which vendors to use? Why?

    • What are the minimum purchase requirements for a certain discount?

  • Inventory strategy​

    • Which items to stock? ​Why (ABC analysis, velocity, expiration date, seasonality, ..)?

    • Which items to order just in time? 

    • Which finished goods to dropship? 

  • Manufacturing strategy​

    • ​Which product to manufacture in-house. Why?​​

    • Which products to outsource for manufacturing (contract manufacturing)?

    • Which machines, tools and labor to acquire?

  • Logistics​

    • Distribution centers​

      • How many? Which size? How much automated? Where? For which products? Why (cost/benefit analysis, ROI, ..)​

      • For which products to use 3PLs? Why?

    • Shipping​

      • For which product to use own truck fleet?​ Why?

      • For which products to use 3PLs for storage and shipping? why?

      • Which carriers to use? Why?

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Answers to the above questions will make up the strategic business plans. These plans should be reviewed monthly by the strategic business planning groups. A group per business function. A leader of each group should be a member of the Company Strategic Business Planning Group.

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Tactical Business Planning

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Tactical business plans determines the tactical plan for each major business function based on the above strategies, and address mainly the following questions:

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  • Marketing tactical plan

    • ​Market segments​​ targeted

      • Which market segments are we targeting this week and month? Why? Timing of market segment entry?

    • Product ​plan

      • Which products shall we lead with for each market segment this week? Why (analysis as above)? 

    • Pricing plan​

      • Which discount promotions  apply th​is week or month? why?

      • What was net benefit of last week's or month's discount promotion

    • Marketing campaign plan

      • Which marketing campaign is planned for this week or month​? Why?

        • To which market segment​

        • Which channel: email, ads, social media, events, partner cooperation, ..

    • Marketing channels

      • Which ones this week:  website changes this week, tradeshows this week​, seminars this week, social media, magazines, .. . Why?

    • Marketing team

      • Who is doing what this week? Why?

      • What was accomplished last week?

  • Sales​​ tactical plan

    • Direct and/or indirect?​ Why?

      • Direct: inside and/or outside sales team​. Who is selling to whom this week? why?

      • Indirect: which training programs this week, meetings/visits this week?

    • Sales commission

      • Demand plan for this week​

      • Performance last week by sales group and sales person?

    • Sales branches: Sales plans and performance this week? 

    • Demand planning for this week and one month out

  • Purchasing/Supply Chain​ tactical plan

    • Which items to purchase this week? why?

    • Which items to manufacture this week and this month? Why?

    • Which vendors to ship this week? Why?

      • Plan​

      • Last week performance

  • Inventory tactical plan

    • Which items to stock this week? â€‹Why?

    • Which items to order just in time this week? 

    • Which finished goods to dropship this weeik? 

  • Manufacturing tactical plan​

    • ​Which product to manufacture in-house this week and month. Why?​​

    • Which products to outsource for manufacturing (contract manufacturing) this month?

    • Which tools and labor is planned for this week and month? Why?

  • Logistics​ tactical plan

    • Distribution centers​

      • Which items and goods are planned to be stored, received and shipped? From which vendor and to which customer

        • Sales and Operatons Plan (S&OP) will specify this.

      • Which products will  use 3PLs this week and month? Why?

    • Shipping​

      • For which product to use own truck fleet this week?​ Why?

      • For which products to use 3PLs for storage and shipping this week? why?

      • Which carriers to use this week? Why (shipping costs)?

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Answers to the above questions will make up the tactical business plans. These plans should be reviewed monthly by the tactical business planning groups. A group per business function. A leader of each group should be a member of the Company Tactical Business Planning Group, and also of their corresponding Strategic Business Planning Group

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The picture below illustrates to a certain extent the Tactical Business Planning process

Strategic and Tactical Business plannning.png

S&OP Technology

 

Listen as Jeff Livingston, Senior Solutions Consultant at DynaSys, a trusted provider of demand and supply chain planning solutions (DSCP), discusses:

  • Where is your business on the Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) maturity scale? 

  • When is the right time to leverage technology to take your S&OP/Integrated Business Planning (IBP) process to the next level? 

  • How can technology like DynaSys DSCP support your planning process maturity and the transition from S&OP to IBP? 

Learn the answers to these questions and what actions you can take now to prepare by watching our webinar. Watch Replay

 

The Fundamentals of IBP (DynaSys)

 

Listen as Dan Allen, IBP Expert at DynaSys, a trusted provider of Demand and Supply Chain Planning (DSCP) solutions, discusses The Fundamentals of IBP:

  • The benefits of Integrated Business Planning (IBP) such as planning time fences to optimize production

  • The steps to follow when implementing an IBP process: from demand and supply planning to demand balancing and the business review

  • The information you should use in an IBP process to maximize this data-driven process

  • IBP is a comprehensive data-driven process which is demonstrated during the webinar.

  • Watch Replay

Our Planning for Success Offer

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Internet Customer Solutions offers the above planning methodology. It offers the following  tools to manage the above planning processes:

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Resources

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