what is a integrated business planning analyst

What Is Integrated Business Planning and Why Is It Important?

Think of modern integrated business planning, or IBP, as a mashup of supply chain optimization, financial planning and analysis (FP&A) and operational best practices, powered by a companywide culture that’s all about delivering the speed, savings and responsiveness today’s consumers demand while managing risk.

Note that IBP as a fuzzy, buzzword-laden process methodology has been around for years. It’s usually implemented by expensive consultants in sprawling, global corporations that know they need to unify siloed sales, supply, financial and operational resources — before more nimble competitors relegate them to the former Fortune 500 list.

We’re here to argue that IBP deserves a second look for any company that wants to maximize profits and minimize the risks associated with growth. No six-figure consultant required.

What Is Integrated Business Planning?

On paper, IBP is a process for aligning a company’s business goals with its finance, supply chain, product development, marketing and other operational functions. Think parts suppliers that work with automakers and need to constantly retool to accommodate design changes, or food producers operating on razor-thin margins that must manage both uncertain supply chains and fickle customer tastes.

Lag, and a competitor is standing by to take that business. Move quickly but in a disjointed manner and you may keep customers, but at the expense of higher cost of goods sold (COGS) and lower profitability.

For example, consider PickerBots, a fictional maker of custom machinery for manufacturing and warehouse operations. When the company launched in 2017, it found a niche in restaurant supply, but when that business slowed significantly in 2020 the founders decided to retool. Rather than simply changing up its marketing, the firm set out to revamp its business strategy. A top-down scenario planning exercise led to realigning its R&D, demand forecasting, profitability and revenue analysis, supply chain planning and marketing and sales strategy.

The company culture was already strong on innovative thinking, but the founders realized that the link between strategic planning and day-to-day operations could use improvement. Enter a new COO with the chops to align operations with product demand planning and sales and marketing while weighing in on financial targets and budgets.

Key Takeaways

• In a company that embraces IBP, there’s a direct line from purchasing, production and inventory to sales and marketing to financial targets and budgets.
• A key IBP benefit is that materials are bought at the right price, at the right time and in just the right quantity to fulfill market demand.
• Successful IBP delivers closer collaboration and more trust among departments, leading to improved decision-making.
• IBP may require significant cultural change and cannot be successful without unwavering commitment from the executive team.

Integrated Business Planning Explained

Many organizations mistake IBP for a supply-chain-centric exercise. While linking supply chain planning with other departments, from sales and operations through finance, is important, that’s just one element.

IBP aligns business g oals and financial t argets with decisions and execution across the entire business.

There is overlap with financial planning and analysis (FP&A). Because an IBP initiative gathers data from across the enterprise, companies get better at predictive analysis. Now, when purchasing forecasts a parts shortage, supply and operations can adjust before customers are affected.

It’s also not a one-and-done exercise. PickerBots’ new COO advises looking a minimum of 36 months out. Leaders will need to keep their eyes on that long-range plan while continually reviewing, revising and communicating financial and operating results. What supply chain gaps have opened up, and how can we close them? Do we need to update our scenario planning? Are we tracking the right financial KPIs?

A crucial element of IBP is that it integrates financials with operations. Here’s a structure that PickerBots plans to follow.

Why Is Integrated Business Planning Important?

Companies that undertake IBP realize a number of practical benefits, including reduced holding costs, more responsive customer service and demand fulfillment, shorter time to market for new products and an improved correlation between demand planning and fulfillment.

After PickerBot’s scenario planning and strategy session, the company decided to jump into the emerging collaborative robot, or cobot, market. A collaborative robot is designed to safely interact with human workers. PickerBot’s leaders believe demand will increase for “pick and place” cobots with fine motor skills for use on manufacturing lines as well as in agricultural settings.

Now that the company has its strategic direction, the COO wants to focus on three higher-level concepts before delving into more practical areas, like financial planning and analysis and supply chain optimization. That’s because without goal-setting, PickerBots won’t be able to define success.

Alignment and accountability 

All executives must agree on three things: What are our corporate goals? What does success look like for each? How will I and my team contribute and be accountable?

The company’s goals are grouped into four areas: industry-focused, operations and supply chain, financial and marketing and sales. The management team will review all goals to make sure they align with strategy and are both actionable and achievable.

Industry-focused goal: Offer the most innovative cobots on the market

What success looks like: Develop a product that can match or exceed a human worker in its ability to pick fragile crops without damage.

Who will execute: The R&D team

Financial goal: Diversify revenue streams

What success looks like: Minimize dependence on one market/industry. Add a services arm to generate recurring revenue from maintenance contracts, powered by sensors built in to all new products.

Who will execute: Cross-functional led by CEO and finance

Other goals might be “control costs at each step and deliver cobots to customers on time and to specifications” with an expectation to lower COGS by 10% and raise the company’s Net Promoter Score by 25% within one year. Or for sales, “find 10 new customers for the company’s agricultural cobots and bundle maintenance contracts with each sale.” That ties back to revenue diversification.

An important point: Every manager is accountable for every goal, not just those that lie within their purviews.

Informed decisions and actions 

Planning across PickerBots’ supply chain was disjointed, with engineers purchasing materials direct and little central planning or cost control. As part of the IBP process, the company will adopt sales and operations planning (S&OP) principles to improve its supply chain and logistics.

Actionable goals here include building visibility into how each department is working and tying the impact of decisions to financial goals. For example, by having R&D build in sensors that can automatically collect and transmit data on a cobot’s operational status, PickerBots can proactively perform preventative maintenance so the devices are almost never down — an important selling point and a way to contribute to maintenance income.

Organizationwide, divisions need to focus less on their own needs and view actions through the lens of all goals. That means the company needs to collect a lot of timely data and use it to issue reports so managers can make better decisions, more quickly. That may require an investment in ERP and other software.

Transparency/visibility 

All department heads will take part in a monthly business review, where the group will assess progress in achieving the company’s objectives. The strategic plan is also available to all staff members, and quarterly all-hands meetings will be held to gather ideas and insights and walk through KPIs.

Four success metrics for the IBP process include:

1. Getting all stakeholders to buy in to corporate goals so that everyone agrees and understands what the business wants to achieve and how it will get there. There are clear responsibilities for each function in the pursuit of goals.

2. Basing business decisions on data. The integration of finance into product, demand and supply functions is key here, as are selecting the right KPIs.

3. Tying decision-making to outcomes and improving accountability. Because every department is responsible for providing accurate numbers and projections, there’s less risk that the CFO and finance team are left holding the bag if revenues fall short.

4. Shifting the culture to embrace cross-functional collaboration. An IBP process encourages openness and trust, and as a result more deeply engages and empowers employees. As an action item, each R&D and manufacturing team member will spend a week annually accompanying sales reps on customer calls.

What Is the Difference Between S&OP and IBP?

The term “IBP” was coined by management consultancy Oliver Wight to describe the next iteration of the sales and operations planning (S&OP) process Wight developed in the early 1980s.

The big difference between IBP and S&OP is that the latter has become the domain of supply chain and logistics specialists, particularly those involved in supply-and-demand balancing and planning. S&OP is execution-focused and involves a traditional budgeting process.

In contrast, IBP takes a more cross-functional and holistic approach to weaving business goals through every function. As a result, in theory, supply chain management is proactive and optimized.

IBP includes S&OP processes but because it involves cultural change, without executive buy-in, IBP will not be successful.

Some major differences between S&OP and IBP are:

6 Steps in the Integrated Business Planning Process

Now that its goals are set, PickerBots can take the next steps in its IBP journey.

1. Determine what is holding the company back. Is it a lack or growth or profitability? Is the product portfolio too complex? Has the business lost competitiveness in its space? For our manufacturing firm, the main problem was overfocus on one niche market.

2. Engage and educate employees. Once leadership buys in to goals, that enthusiasm must trickle down through the ranks. Unless everyone is committed to integrated business planning, success will be elusive. The COO recognizes that a formal employee engagement program will keep workers invested in the success of the business and actively working to meet strategic goals.

3. Set up a tiger team. IBP success comes from tight coordination, constant communication and accountability for KPIs. It’s a cultural shift that will take time to propagate throughout the business. To jumpstart things, PickerBots identified engaged employees within each functional area and assigned them to a daily 20-minute standup call. Now, say a shipment of RFID readers needed by manufacturing will be two weeks late. The purchasing team member shares that information promptly so that sales can manage customer expectations and finance can account for delayed revenue. If the problem recurs, the company can seek out new suppliers. No more surprises.

4. Establish a project/product prioritization process. IBP takes discipline. Only projects that forward the company’s strategic goals get resources. Same for products. That might mean sunsetting a line that’s still selling but lacks growth potential. All managers who require resources or have a product or service launch idea fill out a cost-benefit analysis template that is tailored to reveal whether expected benefits and costs align with goals. Leadership prioritizes using this process. No more sacred cows.

5. Expand the finance team’s influence. Finance needs to sit in on product planning, supply chain optimization and sales strategy meetings. Specifically, choose a finance team member well-versed in FP&A functions. FP&A professionals inform major decisions made by the executive team and collect and analyze financial data from across the organization to create reports that reveal whether goals are being met — and if not, why not? How do we fix the problem? Like many smaller firms, PickerBots doesn’t have a dedicated FP&A staffer, so the head of finance assigns an accounting team member who knows the business and has an aptitude for data collection and number crunching.

6. Adopt technology and tools to support IBP. If the forecasting process is seen as a quarterly or annual exercise imposed by finance and yielding little benefit to departments, IBP can’t succeed. Companies with static, point-in-time budgets need to adopt rolling forecasts to make sure the business stays on track. And, finance teams need to be able to easily access the data they need from each operational area. Both rolling forecasts and better use of data require technology and a commitment to transparency. You can’t manage what you can’t measure.

Traditional vs. Rolling Forecasts

5 tips to succeed at integrated business planning.

Some ways the COO plans to set PickerBots up for success include:

1. Sell IBP as a way to bring order from chaos. For example, large companies, especially those that have engaged in a number of mergers and acquisitions, may have thousands of SKUs and product codes. One big manufacturer Oliver Wight worked with used IBP to whittle 120,000 item numbers down to about 10,000 and reduce inventories by 50% while improving on-time, in-full delivery by up to 20%. For a smaller company, IBP can prevent ever getting in a situation where it needs to slash 90% of SKUs.

2. Adopt a continuous improvement mindset. All parts of any production or service system, particularly people, are interconnected, inform one another and are mutually dependent on generating successful outcomes. This practice’s origin comes from Kaizen, a Japanese term meaning “change for the better.” Originating in Japan, the business philosophy looks to continuously improve operations and involve all employees, from assembly line workers to the CEO. It’s a way to reinforce IBP.

3. Get buy-in from the CIO. PickerBots’ CIO came up through the ranks of manufacturing IT and is familiar with the concept of Total Quality Management (TQM), which has overlap with IBP. That went a long way in communicating the benefits of IBP and freeing up budget for technologies that can make IBP work, like ERP, enterprise performance management (EPM), supply chain management and real-time-capable accounting and finance software — especially important to realize the “one set of numbers” value proposition.

4. Apply risk management principles. Disasters large and small happen. While the zen of IBP skews toward positive and upbeat, make sure department heads are doing scenario planning and what-if analyses to model operational risk — like overdependence on one market. Consider assigning your tiger team a secondary function as a crisis management strike force.

5. Don’t forget HR. Labor is likely your company’s biggest operating expense, so ensure that it’s working for your IBP effort, not against it. A human resources professional can identify traits in applicants — like team players who are data driven and comfortable with transparency — that predict whether they will be contributors to IBP success.

Benefits of Integrated Business Planning

Research shows that the main benefit of implementing IBP is increased revenue, followed by forecast accuracy and improved Perfect Order Delivery rates.

Three additional key benefits:

Real-time insights: Once companies have instituted rolling forecasts, for example, finance can more quickly and accurately answer questions on spending and cash flow. Expect more accurate KPIs across the board.

Ownership: The flip side of accountability is that in a company fully embracing IBP, all employees assume responsibility for meeting all goals. So you’d better make sure that authority to make decisions is decentralized and tied to responsibility for outcomes, because there are few bigger morale killers than accountability without the power to effect success. Companies can further nurture a culture of ownership by tying rewards to meeting or exceeding goals.

Improved customer satisfaction: While more on-time, in-full deliveries make customers happy, that’s not the only way IBP improves Net Promoter Scores. Better planning yields better insights into what customers want, and a strong company culture often leads to improved customer empathy and its associated benefits.

Integrated Business Planning Adoption Challenges

Where a business starts with IBP depends on its maturity. Companies with dog-eat-dog cultures and highly siloed processes have a lot of work to do. These tend to be firms with traditional top-down management structures, static annual budgeting with little ability to generate forward-looking projections and dated business plans that are misaligned with current customer needs.

While all are thorny structural challenges, a leadership team that’s averse to placing trust and decision-making authority at lower levels of the organization is in even worse shape. Companies with autocratic, command-and-control styles must be willing to decentralize authority if they hope to realize IPB’s benefits.

Even businesses with mature, integrated processes and egalitarian cultures often get tripped up by “top down” versus “bottom up” KPI reporting and budgeting. IBP requires businesses to focus less on finance developing a top-line budget and then handing departmental budgets down from on high. Rather, they need to become comfortable with a bottom-up process, where departments start with a plan of what they want to achieve, calculate what it will cost and then feed a number up to the finance team, which uses that input to calculate the total budget.

Companies not already using at least a somewhat flexible budgeting process are likely to find this shift difficult. One way to jump-start the transformation might be a modern form of zero-based budgeting.

Steps of Zero-Based Budgeting for 2021

• Create a strategic vision for ZBB: Identify cost targets, relevant KPIs and goals.
• Evaluate business units to select ZBB candidates (also referred to as “decision units,” or any organ of the business that operates independently with its own budget).
• Start selected budgets from scratch (i.e., from zero).
• Each decision unit provides “decision packages,” which break down each activity in terms of its objective, funding needs, justification in the context of company goals, technical viability and alternative courses of action.
• Evaluate each proposed item to determine its value-add to the company and whether the entire cost is justified. What does the expenditure bring back to the company?
• Prioritize costs based on company goals. Reduce or cut expenses in areas that no longer produce significant value.
• Allocate funds among areas that are productive and aligned with the business’s growth drivers.

Elements of Integrated Business Planning

Integrated business planning takes place at a regular cadence; every month is most common, so we’ll use that in our example.

These steps are standard for IBP consultants, adaptable to most industries and bake in the PickerBots COO’s virtuous cycle of market research and strategic planning, R&D and manufacturing, demand forecasting and predictive analysis, profitability analysis, supply chain optimization and marketing and sales strategy.

1. Product management review. This includes all elements of product portfolio management. A cross-functional team meets monthly to review the overall status of all of product-related projects: Are they on track? Have we identified new risks and opportunities? Are the most high-value products or services prioritized? The goal is aligning the product portfolio with business goals and making sure needed raw materials and manufacturing floor capacity are lined up. Product managers revise as needed and publish an updated master plan, along with the resources it’ll take to deliver any changes.

2. Demand planning picks it up. This is a cross-functional process that helps businesses meet customer demand for products while minimizing excess inventory and avoiding supply chain disruptions. Demand planning can increase profitability and customer satisfaction and lead to efficiency gains. This team brings together members of sales, marketing and finance to determine whether they’re targeting the right markets, the right way. They work up an optimized demand plan. Relevant KPIs include sales forecast accuracy, inventory turns, fill rates and order fulfillment lead times.

3. Then, the ball goes to the supply planning team. These supply chain experts work out the optimal way to meet projected demand in a cost-effective way. The key is to have visibility into complex supply chains; a formal supply chain visibility (SCV) project helps spot and fix weaknesses, such as inventory shortfalls or order fulfillment issues, before they become major problems. Lower cost of goods sold (COGS) is the North star.

4. The integrated reconciliation team pulls together the initial product, demand and supply plans and consolidates them into one holistic business plan based on a 24- or 36-month projection; for iterative updates, teams highlight material changes. Decisions that could not be made by individual teams are prepared for executive review.

5. The executive team resolves conflicts and rolls the updated plan out to the entire company.

Integrated Business Planning Components

The components of integrated business planning comprise three buckets: Plan, execute and monitor and adjust.

Specific actions falling into each bucket vary depending on the consultancy or technology supplier. Some are more aligned with supply chain planning, while others center on S&OP or financial planning with plug-ins to other functional areas. Others are very industry-specific.

Let’s look at Oracle’s IBPX (Integrated Business Planning and Execution) for Manufacturing solution as an example. Key components include:

• Top-down and bottom-up, driver-based planning and forecasting
• Risk modeling for M&A and strategic initiatives
• Full financial statement structure for strategic and operational planning
• Predictive and prescriptive analytics and planning
• A preseeded S&OP process
• Near-real-time demand and supply balancing
• Real-time backlog management
• Automation of predictions and correction actions based on actuals
• AI-enabled operational planning, such as for sales territories and quotas
• IoT and sensor data flows integrated with automated decisions

Items like backlog management and enhanced support for IoT and sensor data are important to manufacturers like PickerBots. A retailer might be more interested in advanced inventory management. What’s important is that any solution, whether purchased as a suite or pulled together by an integrator or in-house team, supports the ability to do long- and medium-range and short-term planning based on a single, up-to-date data set that’s accessible to all authorized stakeholders.

Also look for the ability to easily model “what-if” scenarios, robust budgeting and costing and a roadmap to advanced technologies like AI and predictive analytics.

Integrated Business Planning Examples

We mentioned the Oliver Wight customer that whittled 120,000 SKUs down to about 10,000. That firm, Uponor Group, looked to IBP after a string of acquisitions left it with swelling inventories, an extremely complex portfolio and a lack of communication between siloed functions and far-flung locations. The Finnish company sells products for drinking water delivery as well as radiant heating and cooling equipment and has 3,900 employees in 30 countries. Uponor had a hard time getting a singular view of financial information across its subsidiaries, and each unit had its own practices for inventory management. Small events, such as holidays, would drive some sites to build up “just in case” inventory, and double-stocking in warehouses was common. Subsidiaries in different countries had different SKUs for the same items, and R&D was localized, with no collaboration across the company.

Upinor focused first on its supply chain and implemented S&OP processes, then advanced to IBP the following year. The results have been an increase in net sales of $1.1 billion euros, a 30% improvement in on-time in-full deliveries, a 50% reduction in inventories and increased visibility.

U.S.-based technology provider Juniper Networks also undertook an IBP project focused on implementing a digital supply chain with IBP, where the business planning process would extend S&OP throughout the supply chain, product and customer portfolios, customer demand and strategic planning.

Since undertaking the project, Juniper’s lead-time attainment is up 55%. and its inventory costs are down by 15%, allowing it to realize a positive ROI on the IBC project.

History of Integrated Business Planning

Oliver Wight developed S&OP in the 1980s as a methodology for a client that wanted to balance supply-and-demand volume. In the years since, the process evolved to integrate financials, inventory and new-product introductions.

The consultancy renamed S&OP as integrated business planning in the late 1990s to reflect the process of integrating all functions of the business behind one optimized plan. Since then, a newer term, “enterprise integrated business planning,” has emerged. EIBP includes scenario planning and extended supply chain collaboration and discusses how large companies will adopt new technologies, such as AI, big data and advanced analytics.

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Applications of Integrated Business Planning

IBP makes planning and operations much more transparent, so it’s ideal for companies moving to “just in time” manufacturing. It’s also predictive, once a company builds up some data. That can help with customer satisfaction.

PickerBots, as an example, found that it typically sees constrained supply chain capacity for motherboards in Q3. With that insight, sales and marketing can work to encourage customers to take delivery of systems in Q2 or Q4, manufacturing can prebuild products and supply chain leaders can work on alternate sources for parts that pose challenges.

Looking ahead to the future of IBP, we expect it to help companies:

• Work on ever-longer-range strategy planning, modeling and M&A activities with a higher degree of confidence.
• Detect and notify stakeholders of unanticipated events before they impact the business by using advanced technologies, including real-time sensor information and machine learning (ML) pattern recognition.

As companies build comfort with automation, advanced IBP systems can be set to take action based on analysis without human intervention. Consider a chain of bakeries; a system plugged into a long-range weather forecast system might detect a tropical storm that could raise the price of vanilla and automatically order extra.

Cloud-based technology such as ERP underpins all these advances. For example, PickerBots always set its sales goals monthly. But often these plans were delayed to let the executive team review and approve any changes, meaning operations was caught unawares. A tool like NetSuite Planning and Budgeting automates planning processes and centralizes company financial and operational data, so finance teams can disseminate updates quickly.

The next frontier? Expending IBP to business partners and suppliers, even customers. But first, companies need to get their own cultural and technology houses in order.

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Imagine a symphony orchestra where each musician plays their own tune without listening to others. The result would be chaotic and dissonant, right? Similarly, in the business world, when decision-making happens in silos and planning processes are disconnected, it’s like having a group of individuals playing their own instruments without any coordination. The harmony is lost, and the organization becomes inefficient, misses opportunities, and struggles to keep up with the fast-paced market.

Integrated Business Planning (IBP) addresses these challenges by providing a comprehensive framework that integrates strategic, operational and financial planning, analysis, and reporting to drive better business outcomes.    A retail company experiences a sudden surge in online sales due to a viral social media campaign. Integrated planning incorporates supply chain planning, demand planning, and demand forecasts so the company can quickly assess the impact on inventory levels, supply chain logistics, production plans, and customer service capacity. By having real-time data at their fingertips, decision-makers can adjust their strategies, allocate resources accordingly, and capitalize on the unexpected spike in demand, ensuring customer satisfaction while maximizing revenue.   This blog explores the significance of IBP in today’s modern business landscape and highlights its key benefits and implementation considerations.

Integrated business planning framework

Integrated Business Planning (IBP) is a holistic approach that integrates strategic planning, operational planning, and financial planning within an organization. IBP brings together various functions, including sales, marketing, finance, supply chain, human resources, IT and beyond to collaborate across business units and make informed decisions that drive overall business success. The term ‘IBP’ was introduced by the management consulting firm Oliver Wight to describe an evolved version of the sales and operations planning (S&OP process) they originally developed in the early 1980s.

Making up the Integrated Business Planning framework are six key pillars:

1. strategic planning.

Integrated Business Planning starts with strategic planning. The management team defines the organization’s long-term goals and objectives. This includes analyzing market trends, competitive forces, and customer demands to identify opportunities and threats. Strategic planning sets the direction for the entire organization and establishes the foundation for subsequent planning roadmap.

2. Operational planning

Operational planning focuses on translating strategic goals into actionable plans at the operational level. This involves breaking down the strategic objectives into specific targets and initiatives that different departments and functions need to execute.

For example, the sales department might develop a plan to enter new markets or launch new products, while the supply chain department focuses on inventory optimization and ensuring efficient logistics. The key is to align operational plans with the broader strategic objectives to ensure consistency and coherence throughout the organization.

3. Financial planning

Financial planning ensures that the organization’s strategic and operational plans are financially viable. It involves developing detailed financial projections, including revenue forecasts, expense budgets, and cash flow forecasts. By integrating financial planning with strategic and operational planning, organizations can evaluate financial profitability, identify potential gaps or risks, and make necessary adjustments to achieve financial targets.

 4. Cross-functional collaboration

A fundamental aspect of IBP is the collaboration and involvement of various functions and departments within the organization. Rather than working in isolation, departments such as sales, marketing, finance, supply chain, human resources, and IT come together to share information, align objectives, and make coordinated decisions.

5. Data integration and analytics

IBP relies on the integration of data from different sources and systems. This may involve consolidating data from enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, customer relationship management (CRM) systems, supply chain management systems, and other relevant sources. Advanced analytics and business intelligence tools are utilized to analyze and interpret the data, uncovering insights and trends that drive informed decision-making.

6. Continuous monitoring and performance management

The Integrated Business Planning process requires continuous monitoring of performance against plans and targets. Key performance indicators (KPIs) are established to measure progress and enable proactive management. Regular performance reviews and reporting enable organizations to identify deviations, take corrective actions, and continuously improve their planning processes.

What are the benefits of Integrated Business Planning?

By integrating strategic, operational, and financial planning organizations can unlock the full potential of IBP and drive business success and achieve their goals.

Enhanced decision-making

IBP facilitates data-driven decision-making by providing real-time insights into various aspects of the business. By bringing together data from various departments, organizations can develop a holistic view of their operations, enabling them to make better-informed decisions.

Improved alignment

By aligning strategic objectives with operational plans and financial goals, IBP ensures that every department and employee is working towards a common vision. This alignment fosters synergy and drives cross-functional collaboration.

Agility and responsiveness

In the rapidly changing business landscape, agility is crucial. IBP allows organizations to quickly adapt to market shifts, demand fluctuations, and emerging opportunities. By continuously monitoring and adjusting plans, businesses can remain responsive and seize competitive advantages.

Optimal resource allocation

Integrated Business Planning enables organizations to optimize resource allocation across different functions. It helps identify bottlenecks, allocate resources effectively, and prioritize initiatives that yield the highest returns, leading to improved efficiency and cost savings.

Risk management

IBP facilitates proactive risk management by considering various scenarios and identifying potential risks and opportunities. By analyzing data and conducting what-if analyses, companies can develop contingency plans and mitigate risks before they materialize.

Essential steps for implementing Integrated Business Planning

Implementing an effective IBP process requires careful planning and execution that may require substantial effort and a change of management, but the rewards are well worth it. Here are some essential strategic steps to consider:

1. Executive sponsorship

Establish leadership buy-in; gain support from top-level executives who understand the value of Integrated Business Planning and can drive the necessary organizational changes. Leadership commitment, led by CFO, is crucial for successful implementation.

2. Continuous improvement

Continuously monitor and adjust; implement mechanisms to monitor performance against plans and targets. Regularly review key performance indicators (KPIs), conduct performance analysis, and generate timely reports and dashboards. Identify deviations, take corrective actions, and continuously improve the planning processes based on feedback and insights.

3. Integration of people and technology

To foster cross-functional collaboration, the organization must identify key stakeholders, break down silos, and encourage open communication among departments. Creating a collaborative culture that values information sharing and collective decision-making is essential.

Simultaneously, implementing a robust data integration system, encompassing ERP, CRM, and supply chain management systems, ensures seamless data flow and real-time updates. User-friendly interfaces, data governance, and training provide the necessary technological support. Combining these efforts cultivates an environment of collaboration and data-driven decision-making, boosting operational efficiency and competitiveness.

4. Technology

Implement advanced analytics and business intelligence solutions to streamline and automate the planning process and assist decision-making capabilities.  These solutions provide comprehensive functionality, data integration capabilities, scenario planning and modeling, and real-time reporting.

Integrated Business Planning software

From a tech perspective, organizations need advanced software solutions and systems that facilitate seamless data integration and collaboration to support IBP. Here are some key components that contribute to the success of integrated business planning:

1. Corporate performance management

A platform that serves as the backbone of integrated business planning by integrating data from different departments and functions. It enables a centralized repository of information and provides real-time visibility into the entire business.

2. Business intelligence (BI) tools

Business intelligence tools play a vital role in analyzing and visualizing integrated data from multiple sources. These tools provide comprehensive insights into key metrics and help identify trends, patterns, and opportunities. By leveraging BI tools, decision-makers can quickly evaluate financial performance, make data-driven business decisions and increase forecast accuracy.

3. Collaborative planning and forecasting solutions

Collaborative planning and forecasting solutions enable cross-functional teams to work together in creating and refining plans. These planning solutions facilitate real-time collaboration, allowing stakeholders to contribute their expertise and insights. With end-to-end visibility, organizations can ensure that plans are comprehensive, accurate, and aligned with business strategy.

4. Data integration and automation

To ensure seamless data integration, organizations need to invest in data integration and automation tools. These tools enable the extraction, transformation, and loading (ETL) of data from various sources. Automation streamlines data processes reduces manual effort and minimizes the risk of errors or data discrepancies.

5. Cloud-based solutions

Cloud computing offers scalability, flexibility, and accessibility, making it an ideal choice for integrated business planning. Cloud-based solutions provide a centralized platform where teams can access data, collaborate, and make real-time updates from anywhere, at any time. The cloud also offers data security, disaster recovery, and cost efficiencies compared to on-premises infrastructure.

6. Data governance and security

As organizations integrate data from multiple sources, maintaining data governance and security becomes crucial. Establishing data governance policies and ensuring compliance with data protection regulations are vital steps in maintaining data integrity and safeguarding sensitive information. Implementing robust data security measures, such as encryption and access controls, helps protect against data breaches and unauthorized access.  

IBM Planning Analytics for Integrated Business Planning

IBM Planning Analytics   is a highly scalable and flexible solution for Integrated Business Planning. It supports and strengthens the five pillars discussed above, empowering organizations to achieve their strategic goals and make better data-driven decisions.  With its AI- infused advanced analytics and modeling capabilities, IBM Planning Analytics allows organizations to integrate strategic, operational, and financial planning seamlessly. The solution enables cross-functional collaboration by providing a centralized platform where teams from various departments can collaborate, share insights, and align their plans.  IBM Planning Analytics also offers powerful data integration capabilities, allowing organizations to consolidate data from multiple sources and systems, providing a holistic view of the business. The solutions’s robust embedded AI predictive analytics uses internal and external data and machine learning to provide accurate demand forecasts. IBM Planning Analytics supports continuous monitoring and performance management by providing real-time reporting, dashboards, and key performance indicators (KPIs) that enable organizations to track progress and take proactive actions.  As the business landscape continues to evolve, embracing Integrated Business Planning is no longer an option but a necessity for organizations. To succeed in this dynamic environment, businesses need an integrated approach to planning that brings all the departments and data together, creating a symphony of collaboration and coordination.

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A better way to drive your business

Managing the availability of supply to meet volatile demand has never been easy. Even before the unprecedented challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, synchronizing supply and demand was a perennial struggle for most businesses. In a survey of 54 senior executives, only about one in four believed that the processes of their companies balanced cross-functional trade-offs effectively or facilitated decision making to help the P&L of the full business.

That’s not because of a lack of effort. Most companies have made strides to strengthen their planning capabilities in recent years. Many have replaced their processes for sales and operations planning (S&OP) with the more sophisticated approach of integrated business planning (IBP), which shows great promise, a conclusion based on an in-depth view of the processes used by many leading companies around the world (see sidebar “Understanding IBP”). Assessments of more than 170 companies, collected over five years, provide insights into the value created by IBP implementations that work well—and the reasons many IBP implementations don’t.

Understanding IBP

Integrated business planning is a powerful process that could become central to how a company runs its business. It is one generation beyond sales and operations planning. Three essential differentiators add up to a unique business-steering capability:

• Full business scope. Beyond balancing sales and operations planning, integrated business planning (IBP) synchronizes all of a company’s mid- and long-term plans, including the management of revenues, product pipelines and portfolios, strategic projects and capital investments, inventory policies and deployment, procurement strategies, and joint capacity plans with external partners. It does this in all relevant parts of the organization, from the site level through regions and business units and often up to a corporate-level plan for the full business.
• Risk management, alongside strategy and performance reviews. Best-practice IBP uses scenario planning to drive decisions. In every stage of the process, there are varying degrees of confidence about how the future will play out—how much revenue is reasonably certain as a result of consistent consumption patterns, how much additional demand might emerge if certain events happen, and how much unusual or extreme occurrences might affect that additional demand. These layers are assessed against business targets, and options for mitigating actions and potential gap closures are evaluated and chosen.
• Real-time financials. To ensure consistency between volume-based planning and financial projections (that is, value-based planning), IBP promotes strong links between operational and financial planning. This helps to eliminate surprises that may otherwise become apparent only in quarterly or year-end reviews.

An effective IBP process consists of five essential building blocks: a business-backed design; high-quality process management, including inputs and outputs; accountability and performance management; the effective use of data, analytics, and technology; and specialized organizational roles and capabilities (Exhibit 1). Our research finds that mature IBP processes can significantly improve coordination and reduce the number of surprises. Compared with companies that lack a well-functioning IBP process, the average mature IBP practitioner realizes one or two additional percentage points in EBIT. Service levels are five to 20 percentage points higher. Freight costs and capital intensity are 10 to 15 percent lower—and customer delivery penalties and missed sales are 40 to 50 percent lower. IBP technology and process discipline can also make planners 10 to 20 percent more productive.

When IBP processes are set up correctly, they help companies to make and execute plans and to monitor, simulate, and adapt their strategic assumptions and choices to succeed in their markets. However, leaders must treat IBP not just as a planning-process upgrade but also as a company-wide business initiative (see sidebar “IBP in action” for a best-in-class example).

IBP in action

One global manufacturer set up its integrated business planning (IBP) system as the sole way it ran its entire business, creating a standardized, integrated process for strategic, tactical, and operational planning. Although the company had previously had a sales and operations planning (S&OP) process, it had been owned and led solely by the supply chain function. Beyond S&OP, the sales function forecast demand in aggregate dollar value at the category level and over short time horizons. Finance did its own projections of the quarterly P&L, and data from day-by-day execution fed back into S&OP only at the start of a new monthly cycle.

The CEO endorsed a new way of running regional P&Ls and rolling up plans to the global level. The company designed its IBP process so that all regional general managers owned the regional IBP by sponsoring the integrated decision cycles (following a global design) and by ensuring functional ownership of the decision meetings. At the global level, the COO served as tiebreaker whenever decisions—such as procurement strategies for global commodities, investments in new facilities for global product launches, or the reconfiguration of a product’s supply chain—cut across regional interests.

To enable IBP to deliver its impact, the company conducted a structured process assessment to evaluate the maturity of all inputs into IBP. It then set out to redesign, in detail, its processes for planning demand and supply, inventory strategies, parametrization, and target setting, so that IBP would work with best-practice inputs. To encourage collaboration, leaders also started to redefine the performance management system so that it included clear accountability for not only the metrics that each function controlled but also shared metrics. Finally, digital dashboards were developed to track and monitor the realization of benefits for individual functions, regional leaders, and the global IBP team.

A critical component of the IBP rollout was creating a company-wide awareness of its benefits and the leaders’ expectations for the quality of managers’ contributions and decision-making discipline. To educate and show commitment from the CEO down, this information was rolled out in a campaign of town halls and media communications to all employees. The company also set up a formal capability-building program for the leaders and participants in the IBP decision cycle.

Rolled out in every region, the new training helps people learn how to run an effective IBP cycle, to recognize the signs of good process management, and to internalize decision authority, thresholds, and escalation paths. Within a few months, the new process, led by a confident and motivated leadership team, enabled closer company-wide collaboration during tumultuous market conditions. That offset price inflation for materials (which adversely affected peers) and maintained the company’s EBITDA performance.

Our research shows that these high-maturity IBP examples are in the minority. In practice, few companies use the IBP process to support effective decision making (Exhibit 2). For two-thirds of the organizations in our data set, IBP meetings are periodic business reviews rather than an integral part of the continuous cycle of decisions and adjustments needed to keep organizations aligned with their strategic and tactical goals. Some companies delegate IBP to junior staff. The frequency of meetings averages one a month. That can make these processes especially ineffective—lacking either the senior-level participation for making consequential strategic decisions or the frequency for timely operational reactions.

Finally, most companies struggle to turn their plans into effective actions: critical metrics and responsibilities are not aligned across functions, so it’s hard to steer the business in a collaborative way. Who is responsible for the accuracy of forecasts? What steps will be taken to improve it? How about adherence to the plan? Are functions incentivized to hold excess inventory? Less than 10 percent of all companies have a performance management system that encourages the right behavior across the organization.

By contrast, at the most effective organizations, IBP meetings are all about decisions and their impact on the P&L—an impact enabled by focused metrics and incentives for collaboration. Relevant inputs (data, insights, and decision scenarios) are diligently prepared and syndicated before meetings to help decision makers make the right choices quickly and effectively. These companies support IBP by managing their short-term planning decisions prescriptively, specifying thresholds to distinguish changes immediately integrated into existing plans from day-to-day noise. Within such boundaries, real-time daily decisions are made in accordance with the objectives of the entire business, not siloed frontline functions. This responsive execution is tightly linked with the IBP process, so that the fact base is always up-to-date for the next planning iteration.

A better plan for IBP

In our experience, integrated business planning can help a business succeed in a sustainable way if three conditions are met. First, the process must be designed for the P&L owner, not individual functions in the business. Second, processes are built for purpose, not from generic best-practice templates. Finally, the people involved in the process have the authority, skills, and confidence to make relevant, consequential decisions.

Design for the P&L owner

IBP gives leaders a systematic opportunity to unlock P&L performance by coordinating strategies and tactics across traditional business functions. This doesn’t mean that IBP won’t function as a business review process, but it is more effective when focused on decisions in the interest of the whole business. An IBP process designed to help P&L owners make effective decisions as they run the company creates requirements different from those of a process owned by individual functions, such as supply chain or manufacturing.

One fundamental requirement is senior-level participation from all stakeholder functions and business areas, so that decisions can be made in every meeting. The design of the IBP cycle, including preparatory work preceding decision-making meetings, should help leaders make general decisions or resolve minor issues outside of formal milestone meetings. It should also focus the attention of P&L leaders on the most important and pressing issues. These goals can be achieved with disciplined approaches to evaluating the impact of decisions and with financial thresholds that determine what is brought to the attention of the P&L leader.

The aggregated output of the IBP process would be a full, risk-evaluated business plan covering a midterm planning horizon. This plan then becomes the only accepted and executed plan across the organization. The objective isn’t a single hard number. It is an accepted, unified view of which new products will come online and when, and how they will affect the performance of the overall portfolio. The plan will also take into account the variabilities and uncertainties of the business: demand expectations, how the company will respond to supply constraints, and so on. Layered risks and opportunities and aligned actions across stakeholders indicate how to execute the plan.

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Trade-offs arising from risks and opportunities in realizing revenues, margins, or cost objectives are determined by the P&L owner at the level where those trade-offs arise—local for local, global for global. To make this possible, data visible in real time and support for decision making in meetings are essential. This approach works best in companies with strong data governance processes and tools, which increase confidence in the objectivity of the IBP process and support for implementing the resulting decisions. In addition, senior leaders can demonstrate their commitment to the value and the standards of IBP by participating in the process, sponsoring capability-building efforts for the teams that contribute inputs to the IBP, and owning decisions and outcomes.

Fit-for-purpose process design and frequency

To make IBP a value-adding capability, the business will probably need to redesign its planning processes from a clean sheet.

First, clean sheeting IBP means that it should be considered and designed from the decision maker’s perspective. What information does a P&L owner need to make a decision on a given topic? What possible scenarios should that leader consider, and what would be their monetary and nonmonetary impact? The IBP process can standardize this information—for example, by summarizing it in templates so that the responsible parties know, up front, which data, analytics, and impact information to provide.

Second, essential inputs into IBP determine its quality. These inputs include consistency in the way planners use data, methods, and systems to make accurate forecasts, manage constraints, simulate scenarios, and close the loop from planning to the production shopfloor by optimizing schedules, monitoring adherence, and using incentives to manufacture according to plan.

Determining the frequency of the IBP cycle, and its timely integration with tactical execution processes, would also be part of this redesign. Big items—such as capacity investments and divestments, new-product introductions, and line extensions—should be reviewed regularly. Monthly reviews are typical, but a quarterly cadence may also be appropriate in situations with less frequent changes. Weekly iterations then optimize the plan in response to confirmed orders, short-term capacity constraints, or other unpredictable events. The bidirectional link between planning and execution must be strong, and investments in technology may be required to better connect them, so that they use the same data repository and have continuous-feedback loops.

Authorize consequential decision making

Finally, every IBP process step needs autonomous decision making for the problems in its scope, as well as a clear path to escalate, if necessary. The design of the process must therefore include decision-type authority, decision thresholds, and escalation paths. Capability-building interventions should support teams to ensure disciplined and effective decision making—and that means enforcing participation discipline, as well. The failure of a few key stakeholders to prioritize participation can undermine the whole process.

Decision-making autonomy is also relevant for short-term planning and execution. Success in tactical execution depends on how early a problem is identified and how quickly and effectively it is resolved. A good execution framework includes, for example, a classification of possible events, along with resolution guidelines based on root cause methodology. It should also specify the thresholds, in scope and scale of impact, for operational decision making and the escalation path if those thresholds are met.

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In addition to guidelines for decision making, the cross-functional team in charge of executing the plan needs autonomy to decide on a course of action for events outside the original plan, as well as the authority to see those actions implemented. Clear integration points between tactical execution and the IBP process protect the latter’s focus on midterm decision making and help tactical teams execute in response to immediate market needs.

An opportunity, but no ‘silver bullet’

With all the elements described above, IBP has a solid foundation to create value for a business. But IBP is no silver bullet. To achieve a top-performing supply chain combining timely and complete customer service with optimal cost and capital expenditures, companies also need mature planning and fulfillment processes using advanced systems and tools. That would include robust planning discipline and a collaboration culture covering all time horizons with appropriate processes while integrating commercial, planning, manufacturing, logistics, and sourcing organizations at all relevant levels.

As more companies implement advanced planning systems and nerve centers , the typical monthly IBP frequency might no longer be appropriate. Some companies may need to spend more time on short-term execution by increasing the frequency of planning and replanning. Others may be able to retain a quarterly IBP process, along with a robust autonomous-planning or exception engine. Already, advanced planning systems not only direct the valuable time of experts to the most critical demand and supply imbalances but also aggregate and disaggregate large volumes of data on the back end. These targeted reactions are part of a critical learning mechanism for the supply chain.

Over time, with root cause analyses and cross-functional collaboration on systemic fixes, the supply chain’s nerve center can get smarter at executing plans, separating noise from real issues, and proactively managing deviations. All this can eventually shorten IBP cycles, without the risk of overreacting to noise, and give P&L owners real-time transparency into how their decisions might affect performance.

P&L owners thinking about upgrading their S&OP or IBP processes can’t rely on textbook checklists. Instead, they can assume leadership of IBP and help their organizations turn strategies and plans into effective actions. To do so, they must sponsor IBP as a cross-functional driver of business decisions, fed by thoughtfully designed processes and aligned decision rights, as well as a performance management and capability-building system that encourages the right behavior and learning mechanisms across the organization. As integrated planning matures, supported by appropriate technology and maturing supply chain–management practices, it could shorten decision times and accelerate its impact on the business.

Elena Dumitrescu is a senior knowledge expert in McKinsey’s Toronto office, Matt Jochim is a partner in the London office, and Ali Sankur is a senior expert and associate partner in the Chicago office, where Ketan Shah is a partner.

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Integrated Business Planning Best Practices: A BTG Expert Q&A

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Integrated business planning (IBP) initiatives have accelerated in the wake of COVID-19 as senior executives cross-sector come to recognize that heightened economic and geopolitical volatility is here to stay. While not a new concept or trend, IBP is quickly becoming mission critical among savvy leaders who see it as the compass in the storm.

IBP at its core is a choreographing engine—tying together the right people, information, and insights at precisely the right time, in service of a more adaptive, intelligent response to cross-functional risk and opportunity.

To get the latest insights on IBP—with a particular focus on the consumer and retail industries—we’ve turned to Steve Hochman, a former Bain & Company and Abt Associates consultant who also held senior leadership roles including CEO, COO, and VP at several highly successful startups and the Nike Corporation, where he led global supply chain strategy and oversaw two major global planning transformations. Hochman advises clients cross-sector in supply chain strategy, end-to-end planning, and supply chain transformation.

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Steve Hochman

Steve hochman is the vp of research & advisory at zero100, inc. a boutique supply chain think tank that helps fortune 500 c-level executives accelerate operations innovation and transformation at scale..

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What is the main goal of an integrated business plan? How does a successful IBP strategy help align high-level goals with day-to-day operations?

Integrated business planning is a process that continuously aligns targets, assumptions, and plans across all key players in a company to assure more reliable achievement of business plans and brand objectives. In plain English, it’s a way to get everyone on the same page, fast, and execute.

IBP emerged in the early 2000s because of a very practical problem: The more they grow, the more companies become functionally specialized. Particularly when the competition for talent heats up, specialization is necessary to achieve high degrees of competence and pool scarce skills. The problem is that specialization leads to silos. Over time, processes, information systems, incentives, and even team subcultures grow apart, as do their operating plans. Supply chain may see a factory constraint or an inventory risk, but sales teams are told to just keep on selling. Or, operations and sales are aligned, but neither is aligned to the budgets created by finance. And so on.

Fast forward to 2020, and you now have the added challenge of what statisticians called “randomness:” The idea that all plans to some extent are wrong because unforeseeable game-changing world events are now part of the fabric of everyone’s global operating environment. Anyone experiencing the effects of a pandemic, a post-pandemic business rebound, 50% fuel price hikes due to a war in Ukraine, an escalating US-China cold war, intensifying consumer expectations around greenhouse gas transparency, inflation that outlived every economist’s forecast, persistent labor shortages, and now revolutions in artificial intelligence that may change the nature of work itself, will know what I’m talking about.

So, having every executive on the same page is no longer a nice-to-have, it’s survival. Enter IBP.

How does IBP differ from traditional planning processes, such as Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) or Demand Planning? What does the timeline look like for a company who decides to move from S&OP to IBP?

IBP is a natural evolution from earlier versions of planning. Way back in the 1990s, “planning” often just meant getting the orders entered properly ahead of a factory production run. All you needed was a smart analyst to key in the forecast, plus or minus maybe 20% to allow for an order cancellation or two.

S&OP emerged because, as companies grew in scale and complexity, increasingly specialized Operations and Sales functions started to feed factories different demand signals, and chaos ensued. Conversely, S&OP pioneers like Honeywell, Procter & Gamble, and Intel realized that bringing teams together with a more choreographed plan alignment process could be a source of competitive advantage. And it was. Tens of billions of dollars in shareholder value accrued to companies who brought in the top-down, cross-functional plan choreography that we now call S&OP.

The gap that remained was Finance. Particularly amongst larger companies with high degrees of business complexity, it made no sense to align sales and operations plans (often stated in units) if those plans didn’t also connect back to budgets (i.e. dollars). CFOs and divisional GMs at companies like Samsung and Nike recognized that so-called “unit-dollar translation,” while hard, was mission critical. And in many cases, those same companies invested millions of dollars in multi-year integrated planning transformations to ensure it. And thus IBP was born. No longer a supply chain process, among leaders IBP had become part of the business and systems core.

Learn more: Supply Chain Planning Gets a Post-Pandemic Makeover  – Zero Percent Carbon, 100% Digital (zero100.com)

What are the key components of integrated business planning? What are the benefits of having a separate IBP division?

Integrated business planning takes existing supply, demand, commercial, product, and financial planning processes within a company and connects them. When done well, IBP is connective tissue rather than its own separate thing.

The only add-on is 1) the executive meeting that assures cross-functional alignment, and 2) the “pre-IBP” coordination that assure C-level executives are equipped to act on the hard tradeoffs of the hour.

When done right, IBP meetings are exception-based, meaning they are proactive escalations of the vital few risks and opportunities facing the business at that moment in time. And they are, crucially, decision-based. They are not about reporting the news. They are about confronting risk and opportunity, surfacing real bets and options, and making decisions that stick.

I was advising one global fashion brand recently who said culture change is actually what’s most challenging: In many companies, executive reviews are performative – focused on showcasing excellence. IBP is different. While certainly making room for celebration, the express goal is to put the ugly (or sometimes beautiful) truth on the table and confront it so that the company can move with more agility and confidence through the inevitable turbulence ahead.

The masters of IBP understand the value of this pre-IBP meta-capability and do a ton of legwork prior to the meeting itself to assure that one hour spent with all C-suite executives is set up for action.

What IBP practices are easiest for a supply chain leader to implement when beginning to take steps towards IBP excellence?

We often say the best thing to do when taking on an IBP transformation is to just get started. Bring C-level executives into the process and make them part of it. Put executive review meeting #1 on the calendar 60 days out and work towards it. Don’t overanalyze your plan alignment process. Identify the gaps by doing. Then improve.

For that first meeting: What are the big risks you face next quarter? What questions are crucial to answer to align plans against those risks? Is it a demand-side risk? A question on product assortment or pricing strategy? An emerging inventory bubble? Chances are, you know what the big issues are facing the business. The only thing missing is putting it on the table.

Behind the scenes, you can define the longer timeframe, more architectural work of systems, process, and cultural transformation. But get started. Add value now with the information and processes you have. Most IBP leaders get immense value from the associated momentum.

How can IBP help identify opportunities and risk amid uncertainty? How can supply chain leaders properly assess their processes and determine pain points?

IBP is tailor-made to identify risk and opportunity. By establishing a cadence by which we proactively bring plans together and see where assumptions are misaligned, IBP leaders develop a magical capability to surface business gaps sooner. Sometimes those gaps represent upside—untapped revenue, margin, or brand goodwill. Other times gaps really do equal risk. Either way, the continuous nature of plan alignment itself allows companies to move months faster.

The IBP lead at a $50B global diversified technology brand told me her company saves at least 6-12 months on key plan tradeoffs vs. conventional serial planning processes. And that time savings in turn is worth billions of dollars in recaptured growth and margin each year.

Knowing that IBP is not simply a supply chain planning process upgrade, how can leaders get stakeholders across the org aligned and involved?

Great question. It’s a bit of cliché to say large scale transformations require active executive sponsorship. But they really do. The more cross-functional the nature of the initiative, the greater that maxim holds true.

The first step in many IBP transformation initiatives is a Board of Directors’ presentation to educate on the “what and why” of IBP, with specific asks for help. Those presentations are often followed with carefully scripted roadshows to assure all C-level executives and their teams are clear.

IBP leaders will even go so far as to script out role descriptions for C-level executives ahead of that first experimental IBP meeting, training “upwards” to help each executive understand what they need to do to be successful. Beyond explaining “what’s in it for the boss,” IBP leaders need to explain what behaviors are required to deliver IBP value.

Another maxim is to say, “we’re all in sales.” With IBP, that’s absolutely the case. Supply chain or finance leaders who take on the IBP mantle need to develop a core competency not just in operational excellence, but in storytelling. At Zero100, we spend a lot of our energy helping executives with the latter. And it is always time well spent.

And of course, it helps if the storyteller themselves already has trust with the C-level stakeholders involved. Pick leadership talent wisely in this regard. Whether through finance, operations, or other prior experience, having a track record of adding business value is essential to opening the door to any uncertain change.

How can leaders ensure successful and effective integrated business plans? What are the best ways to measure and track related metrics, and how can they best be integrated into existing business processes?

The best way to know an IBP process is successful is if it delivers better decisions faster. Per the IBP leader at the technology company mentioned earlier, “time to decision” is the ultimate metric. The meta-metric flows from that initial indicator. For example, if I decided to liquidate excess inventory 6 months faster, how did that benefit the firm? Chances are, it led to a cleaner marketplace, more cash, and higher margins.

Companies that implement IBP wisely will often instrument their process with a logging mechanism, asking simply: “What would have happened if I had waited 6 months on this decision? How would the financials or the health of the brand have been different? What was the opportunity cost that we avoided by bringing the gap and the debate to a head sooner?” Usually that rough cut analysis is enough to prove to ourselves the huge IBP-led value accrued to the bottom line.

How can leaders ensure these plans and processes are sustainable and able to be maintained?

There are different ways to sustain momentum and operate IBP at progressively greater scale. The most important is generally organizational: IBP leaders will often create a planning “Center of Excellence (CoE)” or equivalent hub to drive continuous improvement and scale-up. Applying dedicated resources ensures organizational focus and signals to the organization that you are putting your money where your mouth is. In short, you want the horsepower in place to drive focus and trust.

Per above, the other signaling device is picking your strongest leaders to drive the change. If IBP is genuinely important to you, you’ll put your A-team on the case. Not only will that A-team have the necessary street cred at the top of the org chart, they’ll also be talent magnets for any long term change you want to drive at scale.

The other scale-driver of course is information systems. While quick process experiments are a great way to generate quick early wins, it’s pivotal to embed a technology swim lane in your transformation roadmap. Much can be achieved with spreadsheets in the first 90 days. After six months, you’ll want to have a robust plan for how you’ll integrate data to automate your IBP plan alignment processes. And you’ll want to have a forward-looking view of the technology landscape to harness fast-evolving capabilities like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and simulation through digital twins. Having a strong digital visionary embedded in your IBP initiative will be paramount.

How can consumer goods companies create sustainable success and properly create a roadmap of actionable items?

Whether consumer goods or otherwise, the principles are the same.

The only additional item to consider is non-competitive peer conversations to learn from the wins and mistakes of others. A great way to accelerate learning is to plug into communities of practice that are cross-sector, e.g. a consumer goods company may learn more from a consumer electronics company than one of its direct competitors.

It’s partly why we complement our research with a lot of peer events for C-level supply chain practitioners. It’s about advancing the collective.

Where should IBP leaders be focusing for 2023? What advice do you have for them?

If I could give just one piece of advice, it would be to work back from 5 years out. Deliver rapid value because you need it for momentum. But technology is advancing too fast to leave your long-term technology and associated talent roadmap to chance. And it’s not just the fancy stuff like artificial intelligence you should track. It’s also newer cloud-based data architectures and master data management services that will fundamentally streamline and accelerate the way an IBP process will function. If you limit yourself to a 1- to 3-year vision, you may lock yourself into legacy architectures that block you from real step-function IBP advantage. You want to be the nimble one. That means careful tracking of digital trends. You may not implement all the cutting-edge tools all at once, but you want an architecture that allows you to pivot as new tools emerge. And equally important, you want to build internal skillsets to be able to digest and capitalize on the exceptional technical capabilities that are just around the corner. Deliver value now but be ready for what’s to come.

Learn more:  Digital Twins Break Into the Boardroom – Zero Percent Carbon, 100% Digital (zero100.com)

Get the IBP expertise you need to succeed.

There are a lot of ways IBP experts can support your goals this year. Among them, identifying and building upon existing processes, identifying opportunities for improvement and growth, creating roadmaps for success, and providing insight on relevant current events and models. Independent talent are essential assets for companies looking to optimize and standardize supply chain and business processes in all industries thanks to their in-demand skills and niche expertise.

Reach out today to secure insights from Steve Hochman or start a project with another highly skilled independent consultant from Business Talent Group.

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Integrated Business Planning: A Detailed Exploration of Strategy and Execution

✅ All InspiredEconomist articles and guides have been fact-checked and reviewed for accuracy. Please refer to our editorial policy for additional information.

Integrated Business Planning Definition

Integrated business planning is a management process that synergizes sales, marketing, finance, operations, and logistics to drive an aligned operational plan and business strategy, balancing demand and supply while also considering financial objectives and the allocation of critical resources. It embraces short, medium, and long-term business planning and assists in decision-making, reducing risks, and increasing profitability.

Importance of Integrated Business Planning

The crucial role of integrated business planning.

Today’s businesses exist in a world that is, to say the least, complex and full of rapid changes. In these circumstances, integrated business planning plays a pivotal role in navigating through the turbulent times by bridging the gap between the company’s strategic ambitions and their operational constraints.

As a unifying framework, the process provides a link between the top-level strategic planning and day-to-day operational activities. It eliminates silos between departments providing a holistic, transparent and real-time view of the business. By mapping all operations to strategic goals, it ensures that all decisions and actions are pulling in the same direction toward the fulfillment of those goals.

Aligning Strategic, Operational, and Financial Planning

With integrated business planning, synchronization becomes achievable at an elevated level. It enables businesses to align their strategic objectives with operations and finances, thus ensuring a smooth flow of processes. When strategy, operations, and finance harmoniously work together, it eliminates any disconnects, resulting in effective and efficient decision-making.

From a strategic perspective, the approach aids in prioritizing goals and developing responsive and realistic plans to achieve them. On the operations front, it identifies bottlenecks, assesses risk, and ensures that all operations are in line with strategic objectives. Lastly, the integration with financial planning leads to accurate financial forecasts, effective cash management, and robust financial control.

To put it another way, this integrated view of business planning is akin to a well-conducted orchestra. Each section of the orchestra, be it strategic, operational, or financial, knows its role, its tasks, and how it contributes to the overall performance of the melody; which in this case, becomes the successful completion of strategic goals.

The Outcome: A Resilient Business Model

In the face of evolving markets and shifting customer demands, integrated business planning empowers businesses to quickly identify, adapt, and respond to changes efficiently. The approach supports timely and informed decision-making, improves communication and collaboration, and nurtures a proactive business culture focused on future growth.

The process also provides a robust system that facilitates scenario planning and risk mitigation. It promotes informed and rational decision-making, thus creating a resilient business model capable of withstanding market uncertainties and disruptions.

In summary, integrated business planning offers a comprehensive, more intelligent approach to business management—one that aligns strategy, operations, and finance towards a common goal while driving performance and sustainable growth.

Core Components of Integrated Business Planning

At the epicenter of integrated business planning is demand. Understanding current customer needs and predicting future ones is key to running a profitable operation. This involves market research, analysis of historical data and forecasting. By getting an accurate approximation of demand, businesses can take proactive measures to efficiently meet those needs.

Supply Management

It’s not just enough to understand the demand. A business must have a competent supply management system that can meet the anticipated demand. This is achieved by coordinating all elements of procurement, production, and logistics to effectively fulfill customer needs. A successful supply chain management strategy incorporates everything from sourcing raw materials, managing inventory, production planning, to eventual delivery.

Product Management

Product management is a very significant part of integrated business planning. It’s the process by which a business decides what products to offer and how to position them in the market. Product managers work cross-functionally with other teams like marketing, sales, and engineering, to ensure that the product aligns with company goals and customer requirements. They also analyze market trends, competitive landscape, and customer feedback to inform product features and enhancements.

Financial Planning

Lastly, financial planning provides the fiscal framework for integrated business planning. It involves budgeting, revenue projection, expense tracking, and monitoring financial performance against these predictions. A detailed financial plan enables a business to execute its strategies within available resources, capitalize on opportunities and respond timely to market changes. Financial planning is indispensable for a sustainable long-term business growth.

Each of these components works seamlessly with the others in integrated business planning. While demand, product, and supply chain management ensures that the business retains a competitive edge in the market, financial planning provides the necessary oversight to ensure the business remains profitable while doing so. This alignment across all the key functional areas is what makes integrated business planning so critical to the success of a business.

The Role of Integrated Business Planning in Corporate Decision Making

In a dynamic business environment, integrated business planning helps corporations quickly adapt and respond. It operates as a navigational tool, guiding decision-making processes at various levels of an organization, from operational to strategic.

Operational Decision Making

At the operational level, integrated business planning aids in managing immediate and short-term decisions. It provides a detailed view of the current business operations- from sales forecasts, customer demands, supply chain management to available resources.

For instance, consider a rise in demand for a product. An operational decision might involve assessing the production capacity and inventory levels, which integrated business planning can readily provide by unifying data from multiple business functions. This allows the organization to react swiftly and efficiently to unexpected changes.

Tactical Decision Making

Tactical decisions contributing towards achieving short-term goals also benefit from integrated business planning. It aids in providing a firm ground that aligns operational decisions with corporate strategy.

Key functions like marketing campaigns, collaborations, or prodigious investments often hinge on the insights captured through integrated business planning. It not only allows companies to seize up-to-the-minute market opportunities but also helps in mitigating potential risks.

Strategic Decision Making

At a strategic level – where decisions have long-term implications and contribute directly to the achievement of an organization’s mission – integrated business planning is instrumental. It provides organizations with forward-thinking views, predicting future scenarios, and laying out a roadmap to achieve the desired goals.

For instance, making decisions about entering new markets, launching new product lines, or obsoleting older ones are all powered by the insights from integrated business planning.

Thus, integrated business planning is central to decision-making processes, underpinning them with a clear, synchronized view of business functions. It enables corporations to respond effectively and swiftly to business environment changes, maintaining their competitive edge.

Integrated Business Planning and Risk Management

Integrated business planning (IBP) plays a crucial role in managing business risks. It enables organizations to align strategic, operational, and financial plans to achieve overall corporate objectives.

Assessing and Managing Risks with IBP

With IBP, an organization can continually assess potential risks and adjust its plans based on a comprehensive and timely understanding of possible implications. This process reduces the likelihood of sudden impact from unanticipated events and enhances the resilience of the business.

For instance, IBP can help in foreseeing economic downturns and prepare for them by diversifying income streams or increasing savings. Similarly, if a company anticipates a shortage of raw materials, it may use IBP to develop contingency plans such as seeking alternate supply sources, redesigning products, or adjusting manufacturing schedules.

Identifying Opportunities

On the flip side, integrated business planning also plays an essential role in identifying opportunities. This comprehensive approach can uncover potential synergies, efficiencies, and strategic initiatives that would otherwise go unnoticed. Leveraging integrated data, businesses can identify market trends early, allowing them to deploy new solutions or services ahead of their competitors.

Consider an organization that notices an increase in the use of sustainable materials via integrated data analysis. With IBP, the company can assess the possible financial and operational implications of shifting to eco-friendly materials, then devise strategies to capitalize on this trend.

Holistic View of Business Landscape

Furthermore, the holistic view provided by integrated business planning assists businesses with identifying both threats and opportunities. By providing viably comprehensive, cross-functional views of the business landscape, IBP allows companies to anticipate changes, react effectively, and seize the opportunities these changes bring.

In conclusion, integrated business planning’s role in risk management is immense. It promotes resilience by enabling organizations to anticipate potential risks and build strategies to navigate them. It also encourages innovation by highlighting emerging opportunities, leading to improved competitiveness and sustainability.

Tailoring Integrated Business Planning to Different Business Models

Applying integrated business planning (ibp) to service-based businesses.

The successful application of Integrated Business Planning (IBP) in service-based businesses can prove to be unique due to the nature of service delivery and customer expectations. Unlike in a product-oriented business where the primary goal is to manage the supply chain, service-based businesses encounter market variability and require a flexible planning process.

IBP helps these businesses by providing a platform to align their operational plans with strategic goals. For instance, the nature of the service can dictate the planning horizon and the frequency of revising plans. A healthcare provider may need a more immediate planning horizon compared to a consultancy firm due to the unpredictable nature of medical emergencies. Hence, IBP can be tailored to accommodate these different planning horizons.

Adapting IBP for Product-Oriented Businesses

Product-oriented businesses, on the other hand, often have tangible inventory and a visibly structured supply chain. Here, IBP comes in handy to integrate various components like sales, operations, and finance to ensure the business stays on track to achieve its strategic goals.

By synchronizing all critical business units, the company can ensure demand forecast accuracy, reduce stockouts and overstocks, and optimize cash flow. For instance, in a manufacturing business, the use of IBP can be pivotal in decisions ranging from raw material procurement to production planning to order fulfillment.

Implementing IBP in Hybrid Business Models

A hybrid business model, a mix of service and product-oriented business, calls for even more flexible application of IBP. Hybrid businesses need to balance the complexities of both models, and this can be achieved by integrating decisions about service delivery and product supply.

The outcome is a more harmonized strategic plan that accommodatively factors in both the intangible and tangible aspects of the business. For instance, a software company that offers both software products (product-oriented) and software services (service-oriented) may use IBP to synchronize the timeline for product development and service delivery.

In conclusion, while the fundamental elements of IBP remain the same, its implementation can and should be tailored to the unique needs of specific business models. The flexibility of IBP lies in its ability to adapt and accommodate the diverse patterns of businesses, ensuring alignment of strategic goals with operational plans. This is what makes IBP not just an effective planning tool, but an innovative business methodology.

The Relationship between Integrated Business Planning and Corporate Social Responsibility

In the application of integrated business planning, it’s important to consider its impact on a corporation’s social responsibility (CSR) practices. Integrated business planning has direct implications, as it can form a strategic platform for organizations to proactively manage their social and environmental responsibilities, in addition to driving financial performance.

When considering a business’s social and environmental responsibilities, it’s clear that these elements can significantly influence planning processes. This is because businesses, especially those operating in sensitive sectors such as mining or manufacturing, must account for the potential social and environmental impacts of their operations.

Effect on Planning Process

Understanding this, the planning process under an integrated business planning model needs to not only focus on traditional economic factors, but integrate CSR into the heart of their business strategies in a structured and systematic way. This might involve predicting potential social and environmental risks and planning appropriate mitigation strategies, or identifying socio-environmental initiatives and integrating them into the business’s operating model.

Asset Utilization and ESG Compliance

Moreover, integrated business planning can allow businesses to better utilize their assets in the service of both financial objectives and CSR. For instance, a manufacturing facility might plan to use more energy-efficient technologies, demonstrating commitment to environmental sustainability, while also potentially reducing operational cost.

Furthermore, a solid integrated business planning can enhance a company’s efforts in Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) compliance. It allows the business to consistently align its operational activities and financial planning with its CSR policies and governance standards. This, in return, may improve the public image, customer trust, and overall market reputation of the company.

Aligning Business Goals with Societal Values

Ultimately, a key aim of integrating CSR into the business planning process is to ensure that an organization’s business goals are well-aligned with societal values and environmental sustainability. Doing so not only helps businesses to fulfill their moral and civic duties, but is also increasingly recognized as a powerful driver of long-term financial performance.

Software Tools for Integrated Business Planning

In order to successfully implement integrated business planning (IBP), businesses need to make use of a variety of software tools. These tools not only make the complex process more manageable, but they also increase accuracy, improve collaborative efforts and provide meaningful insights for better decision-making.

Popular Software Tools

One popular tool is SAP Integrated Business Planning (SAP IBP) . This tool is lauded for its real-time supply chain management features. SAP IBP offers features for demand planning, supply and inventory planning, sales and operations planning, and response and supply control.

Another widely adopted software is Anaplan . Anaplan’s platform helps businesses model and visualize their data, and is known for its capability to handle extremely large data sets, making it ideal for large organizations.

Oracle Demand Management Cloud is also worth mentioning. It provides predictive analytics to understand and manage demand, and it integrates well with other Oracle applications, making it an attractive choice for businesses already using the Oracle ecosystem.

Kinaxis RapidResponse stands out for its scenario planning features, allowing businesses to simulate and compare various situations and their outcomes.

Role of Technology in IBP

Technology plays a pivotal role in IBP, simplifying and enhancing the process. With the vast amount of data businesses deal with today, manually managing such processes would be time-consuming and prone to human errors. Software tools automate most of these tasks, ensuring accuracy and efficiency.

Moreover, these tools often provide data visualization features, converting complex data into easy-to-understand charts and graphs. This not only makes data more accessible to all stakeholders, but also aids in quicker decision-making.

One significant advantage of using these tools is the ability to collaborate in real-time. Multiple users can work together on the same data sets, breaking down silos within the organization. With everyone on the same page, the alignment between different business functions improves, boosts the overall business performance.

Lastly, with features like predictive analytics and scenario planning, businesses can better anticipate future scenarios and prepare accordingly, reducing the risk associated with unforeseen changes in the market or supply chain.

Thus, with the help of software tools, integrated business planning becomes a more streamlined, accurate, and collaborative process.

Implementing Integrated Business Planning

Essential considerations for successful implementation.

To ensure a successful transition to using integrated business planning, several key aspects must be considered.

Employee Training

A central aspect of this change-over is the training of employees. Your employees need to understand the principles of integrated business planning and how they can apply these principles in their day-to-day activities. This training could be delivered through workshops, seminars, or e-courses, depending on what’s most effective for your employees.

Ongoing mentorship and support are also beneficial, helping employees adjust to the new system over time. By providing continuous learning opportunities, you keep your employees engaged and motivated, thus enhancing the adoption of integrated business planning.

Technological Requirements

The transition to integrated business planning is not only about changing mindset, but also about updating your technology stack, as this approach often relies on advanced software solutions. The exact technology needed may vary depending on the scale of your business and the nature of your operations, but a comprehensive business planning software suite is usually a baseline requirement.

Additionally, you would need to evaluate your current IT infrastructure to check if it can support the new systems. It might be necessary to upgrade certain components to ensure seamless operation. Remember, your new software should be user-friendly to promote ease of use among your employees.

Embracing Cultural Change

Implementing integrated business planning can bring about a significant shift in your company culture. As an approach that emphasizes collaboration and transparency, it requires a shift away from organizational silos. Employees at all levels need to get used to sharing information and making collective decisions.

Promoting this cultural shift can be challenging. Clear, effective communication will be crucial. Explain the advantages of the new system, engage employees in the planning process, and make sure everyone understands their responsibilities. Celebrating small victories can also help to promote positive feelings towards the change.

By paying attention to these critical aspects – employee training, technology, and culture change – you can lay the foundation for a smooth transition to integrated business planning.

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What is Integrated Business Planning (IBP)?

Integrated business planning (IBP) is a business concept that helps executives in strategic decision-making by optimizing resources, fostering a transparent culture, coordinating operations, and holding employees accountable. It can boost sales and expand operations by comparing IBP to standard operating procedures. Ever wondered what is Integrated Business Planning (IBP)? Read this blog for further details on IBP.

Understanding Integrated Business Planning (IBP)

An approach that firms can employ to assist them match their objectives with their operations and strategy is called integrated business planning. A company’s supply chain management, financial status, marketing and sales strategies, and resources are just a few of the variables that are taken into consideration by Integrated Business Planning . IBP was initially created in the 1980s by management consultant Oliver Wight.

Eligibility for Integrated Business Planning (IBP) course

Depending on the objective or level of the course, standard prerequisites may vary. However, basic eligibility is as follows:

• A high school degree is the absolute minimum required to enrol.
• A bachelor’s degree is required for some advanced classes or certifications.
• Foundational business courses may include basic concepts including marketing, operations, and finance.
• Prior knowledge in specific fields or industries can be helpful.
• Certain courses might call for technical proficiency with the SAP IBP program.

Fee for Integrated Business Planning (IBP) course

The fee structure of various providers and institutions varies. Some may charge a few hundred dollars for beginner courses, but programs aimed at advanced skills or certification may run into the multiple thousand dollar range. Numerous variables, like the course’s format, duration, location, and rapport, can greatly affect the cost. The cost of the SAP Integrated Business Planning course is approximately ₹34500 at accredited institutions like Kodakco.

Duration of an Integrated Business Planning course

The ideal length of an IBP course varies based on the course level, delivery method, personal demands, and learning style. Below are the basic duration of the course:

• Traditional in-person classroom courses provide in-depth learning opportunities and might run from a few days to several weeks.
• Online courses are flexible, lasting anything from a few weeks to several months.
• Live sessions combined with online modules usually take place over several weeks or months.

Integrated Business Planning course syllabus

Depending on the provider and course level, there might be substantial differences in the structure and content of SAP IBP courses. Some common syllabi are as below:

• Introduction, Crucial IBP Procedures
• Concepts of Planning
• Working together and communicating
• Putting IBP Advanced Concepts into Practice
• Data-Oriented IBP
• Managing and Leading IBP, among other things

Jobs following an SAP IBM Course

SAP IBP training leads to a variety of work opportunities as below: Project manager, data analyst, business process analyst, SAP IBP consultant, and many more roles. Demand and supply planners, inventory planners, S&OP (sales and operations planning) specialists, IBP analysts, specialized IBP positions, and so forth are examples of core IBP positions. Jobs unique to a particular industry include supply chain planners in manufacturing, demand planners in retail, financial analysts in the financial services sector, and so forth.

Kodakco- SAP IBP Training course

Ratings: 9.6/ 10.

Kodakco offers a detailed SAP Project management Training course, covering supply chain management, demand forecasting, and multistage inventory optimization. The SAP IBP course from Kodakco is ranked among the top 3 SAP courses. Kodakco, a tech consultancy specializing in SAP, offers upskilling services in Hyderabad and San Francisco, focusing on cloud analytics and other business-to-business applications, prioritizing customer needs and enhancing their capabilities.

Contact/Whatsapp: +91 9311822748

Fee: approximately ₹34500, duration: 44 hours of live online session, mode: online, benefits of kodakco.

• Five-in-One Course Exam Support
• 100 per cent hands-on training ranked in the top three SAP courses.
• Access the E-Learning Portal via a Mobile App with a 100% money-back guarantee.
• Use the EPM Formatting sheet’s features to your advantage and work on it to make your data appear polished and appealing.
• With 100% placement assistance from our professionals, launch your career in the SAP space and pass the SAP Certification exam.

Related courses from Kodakco

SAP FICO Training course SAP MM Training course and so on.

Kodakco in other cities

Telangana, Noida and others.

Recommended reads

Understanding the benefits of SAP Software Best SAP IBM courses

Integrated Business planning involves a comprehensive management process including sales, marketing, finance, operations, and logistics to create a strategic and operational plan. This process is crucial for career advancement, improved business acumen, and organizational transformation. If you’re considering taking an IBP Course , ensure it aligns with your career goals and provides practical skills and knowledge.

Q1. To whom might IBP training be beneficial? Ans. This course is open to everyone in business from managers, leaders, and entrepreneurs to aspiring CEOs.

Q2. Is integrated business planning limited to large organizations? Ans. Integrated planning principles are beneficial to firms of all sizes.

Q3. Can I learn IBP without a course? Ans. Yes, with digital resources, certificates, and self-study, however, a course gives structured training and mentoring.

Q4. What is covered in an integrated business planning course? Ans. Strategic planning, data analysis, cooperation abilities, and a holistic perspective on the company. It’s a business information powerhouse, from data-driven decision-making to strategic planning.

Q5. How does IBP increase the speed of businesses? Ans. Integrated planning and insights, and business plans can quickly adjust to changes in the market.

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Strategy Job Descriptions

Business planning analyst job description, business planning analyst.

As a Business Planning Analyst at [Company Name], you will play a crucial role in driving the company's growth and success. You will be part of the [Team], reporting to the [Reporting To]. In this role, you will work closely with the [Teams Collaboration] to support and strengthen the company's business planning and strategy.

Responsibilities:

• Conduct market research and analysis to identify new business opportunities.
• Assist in the development and implementation of business plans and strategies.
• Analyze financial data and create reports to support decision-making processes.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to assess and optimize business processes.
• Monitor and track key performance indicators to evaluate the effectiveness of business initiatives.
• Prepare presentations and reports for senior management and stakeholders.
• Support the development and execution of budgeting and forecasting activities.
• Stay updated on industry trends and competitive landscape to provide insights and recommendations.

Requirements:

• Bachelor's degree in business, finance, or a related field.
• [X years of experience] years of experience in business planning, strategic analysis, or a similar role.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Proficiency in data analysis and financial modeling.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced and dynamic environment.
• Advanced knowledge of Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint.
• Experience with business intelligence tools and ERP systems is a plus.

Success Metrics:

• Timely completion of business plans and strategies.
• Accuracy and quality of financial analysis and reports.
• Contribution to improved business processes and efficiency.
• Positive feedback from senior management and stakeholders.

Your role as a Business Planning Analyst at [Company Name] will be instrumental in driving the company's growth, development, and achievement of strategic objectives. By providing valuable insights and supporting the implementation of effective business plans and strategies, you will contribute to the overall success of the organization.

Add [Contact Name] at [Email] to apply.

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Find your next business planning analyst.

Use our free tailored job description for the role of Business Planning Analyst. Our job description provides detailed responsibilities, requirements, success metrics, and more. It can be customized to meet the specific needs of your organization. Take the guesswork out of hiring and ensure you find the perfect candidate for the job.

About the Business Planning Analyst

A Business Planning Analyst plays a crucial role in the organization's strategic planning and execution. They are responsible for analyzing market trends, financial data, and business performance to develop actionable plans and recommendations. They collaborate with cross-functional teams to identify opportunities for growth, improve operational efficiency, and drive overall business success.

FAQs about the Business Planning Analyst

What is the role of the business planning analyst about.

The role of the Business Planning Analyst is to support the organization's strategic planning and execution efforts. They gather and analyze data, develop insights, and provide strategic recommendations to drive business growth. Our tailored job description provides a detailed overview of the responsibilities, requirements, and success metrics for this role. Examples of tasks may include conducting market research, creating financial models, and assisting with budget planning.

Why do you need a Business Planning Analyst?

A Business Planning Analyst is essential for effective strategy execution. They help organizations make informed decisions, identify growth opportunities, and align resources to achieve strategic goals. This supporting strategy execution role depends on the specific needs and structure of the organization. However, having a skilled Business Planning Analyst can significantly enhance the organization's ability to drive success and navigate complex business challenges.

What would be an average salary for the Business Planning Analyst?

The average salary for a Business Planning Analyst in the US ranges from $60,000 to $90,000 per year, depending on factors such as experience, location, and company size. This estimate is based on data from reputable sources like Glassdoor and can vary depending on the specific circumstances of each position.

Ready to find your next Business Planning Analyst? Create your tailored job description.

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What is the difference between integrated business planning (IBP) and Extended Planning and Analysis (xP&A)?

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Senior Director, Finance and Business Solutions

IBP and xP&A are the future of enterprise business planning, but each has unique attributes to fit various use cases.

Enterprise planning is a complex process at the mercy of several key components. Business events occurring after the plan is agreed upon can derail it all. Using performance tracking to plan, and reforecasting to get back on track, become extraordinarily difficult exercises when the budget is out of date immediately after being put in place. There is no amount of plodding through buckets of spreadsheets from across the organization able to keep up with change and churn, especially in these volatile times.

There is hope. You can put an end to the craziness. Businesses can now access tools and capabilities specifically designed to make planning easier and more effective, all aimed at streamlining and consolidating the financial and operational planning processes and driving partnership and collaboration. These tools fall into two categories: integrated business planning (IBP) and extended planning and analysis (xP&A is Gartner’s term for a single platform at the center of the planning process). At Anaplan, we call it Connected Planning.

If you’re struggling to drive operational excellence using a legacy system, disparate spreadsheets, and static budgets, it’s time to modernize.

Before you choose your platform, you should understand the differences between IBP and xP&A to ensure you’re setting your business up for success.

Integrated business planning

Integrated business planning (IBP) represents a supply chain-centric business process focused on aligning operational planning with the overall enterprise strategy. The execution of IBP processes doesn’t necessarily stay on a single platform. Considering supply chain’s nature, IBP solutions could even span different enterprises. IBP vendors typically focus on bringing operational planning and enterprise strategy together, creating an aligned approach focusing on supply, demand, finance, and product at large. If you want to approach planning from a product or operational focus, IBP could be a good fit.

For instance, a large retailer could use an IBP platform to adequately plan for a busy season in an uncertain climate, such as a holiday season during a global pandemic. Using intelligent business forecasting and modeling, the retailer can more accurately predict the season’s demand. Then the retailer can do short-term planning with the latest data across the supply and demand chain, have plans for error mitigation, and have models in place for meeting shopper demand. Deeper visibility into the supply chain allows agile decision-making when demand outpaces supply.

In order to succeed, IBP requires executive buy-in, ensuring this new approach to planning is adhered to across the organization. This enables every stakeholder across the business to be involved in information-sharing to provide agile forecasting and thereby improve supply chain and operations success.

IBP also distributes responsibility across the organization. No one department solely carries the success of supply chain or finance , and instead, they work together to achieve more functional operations and decision-making. Using its focus on supply chain, IBP users can improve their customer service by providing more intelligent planning to support demand.

Extended Planning & Analysis (xP&A), an acronym introduced by Gartner, is a more robust and finance-driven planning solution for enterprises than IBP. It evolves traditional FP&A by driving integration of operational processes along with the enterprise’s financial performance. A key component of xP&A is being platform-centric, where all operational and financial planning use cases run on the same system and architecture, and using a common data model.

This allows organizations to more agilely analyze and predict the impact of business events across finance, supply chain, sales, and other functions

By using xP&A, or what Anaplan calls Connected Planning, companies can capitalize on better business agility to respond to a volatile market. Using machine learning and AI, they can create forward-looking plans without relying solely on backward-looking data. xP&A makes it easy to reduce risk and drive success through access to the right data at the right time. Like IBP, xP&A shares responsibility cross-functionally, empowering each department to provide the data used in financial and operational planning. The organization works as a connected unit working toward an executive-approved goal with insights from each business unit improving visibility into each department.

Anaplan connects every business unit into one holistic platform, allowing users to surface previously hidden insights and to quickly reforecast, referencing both internal and external factors. This reduces the possibility of mismatched supply and demand, customer frustration, and substantial financial or reputational damage from events beyond the business’ control.

If the retailer planning for an uncertain holiday season uses xP&A rather than IBP, they’ll capitalize on all the benefits of the IBP, plus more. They can still track supply chain and operations while also forecasting and planning for demand. Using AI and machine learning, the retailer could also factor in variables from other business units.

For example, the xP&A solution can aid the retailer’s merchandising units by creating one source of truth for buyers, merchants, planners, and wholesalers. All of that is possible while also providing on-demand category performance, in-depth modeling and forecasting, and the ability to manage the entire product lifecycle from a central source of information and organization-wide specifications. The retailer can also be keyed-in to the effect of marketing spend and track the impact of those activities against supply, demand, and profitability. During a holiday season, xP&A can also provide the retailer with advanced insight into workforce planning. Using the xP&A platform as the nerve center, workforce management can make informed and agile decisions about talent, costs, attrition, and more.

Ultimately, the retailer has immediate visibility into the financial impact of those decisions across the business. They can also see the possible outcomes of varying scenarios, and ensure decision-making is performed with full analytic investigation and foresight.

Although this seems much like IBP, xP&A transcends simply allowing finance and operations to communicate and collaborate without error-prone spreadsheets. Instead, xP&A connects the entire business to finance, from workforce planning to marketing, rather than limiting the technology to primarily supply chain and operations. Allowing each department to reference one centralized tool enables agile decision-making, nimble pivots in strategy, and a holistic view of performance.

IBP and xP&A sound similar in nature and it is important to note IBP doesn’t have to rival xP&A. In fact, IBP can work in tandem with xP&A solutions to provide specialized in-depth supply and operational planning angles to the overall strategy by combining information from each business unit directly with finance. Anaplan’s Connected Planning capabilities enable both IBP and xP&A, so enterprise businesses can see cross-functional areas of success, improvement, and risk to inform decision-makers. With this knowledge, organizations are uniquely positioned in the market to be agile and responsive to the unexpected with the clear vision provided by accurate forecasting, advanced modeling, and confidence in their choices.

Read Gartner’s analysis of xP&A vendors and its future.

What is a Planning Analyst?

Learn about the role of Planning Analyst, what they do on a daily basis, and what it's like to be one.

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Definition of a Planning Analyst

What does a planning analyst do, key responsibilities of a planning analyst.

• Conducting detailed data analysis to inform strategic planning and decision-making processes
• Developing financial models and forecasts to predict outcomes and support business initiatives
• Collaborating with cross-functional teams to gather data and understand business needs
• Identifying trends and patterns in data to uncover opportunities for growth and efficiency
• Creating reports and presentations that clearly communicate analytical findings to stakeholders
• Assisting in the budgeting process by providing insights into potential costs and revenues
• Monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of strategic plans and recommending adjustments
• Supporting the management team with ad-hoc analysis, planning, and project management
• Ensuring compliance with industry regulations and organizational policies in planning activities
• Utilizing advanced analytics tools and software to enhance the accuracy of projections and reports
• Participating in the development and implementation of planning systems and processes
• Providing training and support to other departments on data-driven decision-making practices

Day to Day Activities for Planning Analyst at Different Levels

Daily responsibilities for entry level planning analysts.

• Gathering and compiling data from various sources
• Assisting with basic analysis to support planning decisions
• Creating and updating reports and dashboards for internal use
• Supporting senior analysts in larger projects and initiatives
• Participating in meetings and providing administrative support
• Engaging in professional development to improve technical and analytical skills

Daily Responsibilities for Mid Level Planning Analysts

• Conducting in-depth data analysis to inform strategic decisions
• Developing forecasting models and performance metrics
• Collaborating with cross-functional teams to align planning efforts
• Presenting findings and recommendations to management
• Identifying trends and potential issues in business operations
• Assisting in the development and refinement of planning processes and tools

Daily Responsibilities for Senior Planning Analysts

• Guiding the strategic planning process and setting analytical priorities
• Overseeing complex analyses and the development of advanced forecasting models
• Advising senior management on planning outcomes and business implications
• Leading cross-departmental initiatives to improve operational efficiency
• Contributing to policy development and organizational strategy
• Mentoring junior analysts and fostering a culture of data-driven decision making

Types of Planning Analysts

Financial planning analyst, supply chain planning analyst, urban and regional planning analyst, strategic planning analyst, workforce planning analyst, project planning analyst, what's it like to be a planning analyst , planning analyst work environment, planning analyst working conditions, how hard is it to be a planning analyst, is a planning analyst a good career path, faqs about planning analysts, how do planning analysts collaborate with other teams within a company, what are some common challenges faced by planning analysts, what does the typical career progression look like for planning analysts.

How To Become a Planning Analyst in 2024

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Broaden the scope of traditional financial planning and analysis (FP&A) to business planning and analysis (BP&A).

For decades, organizations’ finance departments have used FP&A to budget and forecast within a fiscal year, conduct historical reporting, and generate standard reports. While this traditional approach worked well in the past, businesses today face a host of global and local challenges that require their finance groups to take a cross-enterprise approach, incorporating activities from functions that are crucial to moving the business forward—such as sales, marketing, and operational planning—to align with their company’s strategic vision.

We call this holistic approach business planning and analysis, or BP&A. The end result? Planning becomes a more dynamic process that focuses on the future in a more effective and efficient manner.

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The Progression from Traditional S&OP to a Strategic IBP Process

Evolving traditional Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) to a more strategic Integrated Business Planning (IBP) process has become critical to thrive in an increasingly complex and volatile global market. The shift from S&OP to IBP is not merely a change in terminology; it represents a fundamental transformation in how companies approach planning, decision-making, and collaboration across the organization.

Historically, many departments operated in silos, with supply chain, finance, merchandising, and other functions working independently. In our recent webinar: Aligning Strategic and Tactical Supply Chain Planning with Finance , our panel of supply chain experts discussed how these silos have to be broken down, and all stakeholders need to move together, not in isolation. IBP is the catalyst for this transformation, as it encourages a collaborative approach to planning that spans the entire organization.

The more advanced IBP process empowers companies to break down the barriers between different departments to foster a holistic understanding of the business landscape. This encourages cross-functional collaboration, enabling supply chain planners, finance experts, merchandisers and other key stakeholders in the organization to work synergistically towards common organizational goals. By improving alignment across the business and involving input from different perspectives in the planning process, companies benefit from more robust and resilient strategies.

What are the Key Differences Between S&OP and IBP?

When discussing the key differentiators between S&OP and IBP during the session, Richard Herrin, industry leader in advanced S&OP and IBP strategy, underscored a significant limitation of S&OP. He affirmed the traditional approach often fell short because it primarily focused on volumes and short-term objectives, while neglecting financial considerations. Richard noted: “9 out of 10 S&OP implementations never really delivered on the full promise, because it was just a volumetric exercise every month.” He then explained how IBP emerged as the solution to bridge these gaps, recognizing the need for a more comprehensive approach that integrates financial impacts into the decision-making process.

Rebecca Haerter, Vice President of Supply Chain at Full Compass Systems, elaborated on this, highlighting the tactical nature of S&OP, where the focus was on checking boxes without considering the broader consequences. In contrast, she said IBP promotes “great strategic discussions across the organization, with the key decision makers involved and aligned.” She added that in this process, the key decision-makers understand that the plan is only as good as its adaptability to changing circumstances.

The agility that IBP brings to the table is vital for businesses to adapt and remain competitive. It allows companies to shift inventories as market conditions change, avoiding the worst-case scenario where inventory is stuck in a declining segment while the business's growth drivers remain underfunded. The ability to adjust strategically and promptly to industry shifts is a game-changer, ultimately elevating revenue and margin.

In essence, IBP is all about collaboration. It brings together diverse teams and departments, fostering open and transparent discussions that allow for the best decisions to be made. As Rebecca mentioned, it's a process where individuals challenge each other's thought processes, bringing different perspectives to the table. This collaborative approach ensures that organizations can make the most informed decisions, adapt to change swiftly, and navigate the complexities of the modern business landscape successfully.

Watch the webinar to learn how your peers are making the most of advanced supply chain planning software to align operations across a robust IBP process: Aligning Strategic and Tactical Supply Chain Planning with Finance (johngalt.com)

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AI and Integrated Business Planning: How Do They Overlap?

The unification of artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced planning methodologies has become paramount for staying competitive.  Organizations today are striving to streamline operations, optimize resources and respond swiftly to market changes.  As a result, the synergy between AI and Integrated Business Planning (IBP) emerges as a powerful solution.  But how exactly do these two domains overlap, and what benefits do they offer when combined?

Understanding Integrated Business Planning

Before delving into how AI and IBP converge, let’s first grasp the essence of Integrated Business Planning.  IBP is a strategic management process that connects various organizational departments to align business operations with financial goals.  How?  By unifying business functions – such as Sales, Marketing, Finance, Supply Chain and Operations – to create a holistic view of the company’s performance and future direction.

The bottom line?  IBP is about aligning strategy and intent, unifying planning processes, and bringing together the organization for agile decision-making.

The Overlapping Role of AI and Integrated Business Planning

On the other hand, AI has revolutionized how businesses analyze data, make predictions and automate processes.  With AI, organizations can extract valuable insights from vast datasets, identify patterns and forecast future trends with remarkable accuracy and efficiency.

Ultimately, AI-driven tools can automate routine tasks and surface hidden insights, empowering teams to focus on high-value activities and strategic decision-making.

The AI-Powered Future of IBP

As the Finance function has started to embrace AI, IBP has been revolutionized – enabling organizations to capitalize on vast amounts of data at a rapid pace and optimize planning processes.  AI-powered tools will ultimately automate repetitive tasks, generate real-time financial reports and even suggest corrective actions based on real-time data.

The embedding of AI into IBP offers several benefits:

• Enhanced Forecasting Accuracy:  AI-powered forecasting models enhance the accuracy of demand, supply and financial forecasts in IBP.  By incorporating historical data, external factors and real-time information, these models enable businesses to anticipate fluctuations in demand, mitigate risks and optimize inventory levels effectively.
• Improved Operational Efficiency:  By automating repetitive tasks (e.g., data collection, analysis and reporting ), AI accelerates the IBP process, reducing time-to-insight and enhancing operational efficiency.  This acceleration allows organizations to iterate plans more frequently, adapt to changing market conditions and maintain a competitive edge.
• Data-Driven Insights:  IBP thrives on data – sales forecasts, inventory levels, market trends and much more.  And AI excels at handling vast amounts of data, identifying patterns and generating insights that would be impossible for humans alone.  As a result, AI augments IBP by providing deeper, more nuanced insights about resource allocation, product development and market expansion.
• Optimized Decision-Making:  AI-driven decision support systems assist IBP teams in evaluating multiple scenarios, identifying potential outcomes and selecting the most favorable strategies.  Through AI-powered scenario modeling, AI thus empowers organizations to make data-driven decisions that align with long-term objectives.

Real-World Applications

Numerous industries are already harnessing the synergy between AI and IBP to drive innovation and achieve sustainable growth:

• Retail:  AI-powered demand forecasting and inventory optimization enable retailers to align supply with demand, minimize stockouts and maximize sales opportunities.
• Manufacturing:  AI-driven predictive maintenance enhances equipment reliability, reduces downtime and optimizes production schedules in the manufacturing sector.
• Healthcare:  AI-supported patient demand forecasting and resource allocation improve healthcare delivery, optimize staffing levels and enhance patient outcomes.

By embracing AI, businesses can elevate their IBP practices to a whole new level.  And the future of integrated business planning and AI is intertwined.  AI’s analytical power combined with IBP’s strategic framework will equip businesses to navigate complexities, capitalize on opportunities and achieve sustainable growth in an ever-evolving marketplace.  As technology continues to advance, the synergy between AI and IBP will undoubtedly redefine the future of business planning, empowering organizations to thrive in the face of uncertainty.

Want to learn more about AI-powered IBP?  Stay tuned for additional posts from our AI and Integrated Business Planning series, or read about how we helped Autoliv in this case study .

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The Role of a Business Analyst in an Integration Project

by Ben Lemire | Jun 30, 2020

The role of a Business Analyst (BA) is one of detailed analysis and clear communication. It involves identifying assumptions, translating software jargon for the intended audience, and identifying misunderstandings as early in a project as possible.

Most of my professional life as a BA has been spent working on internal projects. Since moving to Dispatch , I’ve seen the consultant side of the equation, and I can tell you that consultants want the same outcomes as the client:

• The project gets done on time.
• The client is happy with the outcome.
• The project stays within budget.

For a BA, these all depend on lowering the risk of engagement, meaning that everyone understands the expected outcome. The thing that struck me the most when I began working as part of a consulting team is how few customers bring formal requirements to the table. Usually, we get a Statement of Work, written at a very high level, and often signed by someone on the client’s side who is not part of the project team. This means that we have to move quickly to accurately define what the outcome will be, informed not only by discovery, but our knowledge of the systems in scope, and our experience with other customers with similar integrations.

One of the unique elements of integration projects is that the discovery process is very multi-dimensional, which necessitates a very strong Business Analyst who works with a System Architect and Project Manager to facilitate and document the outcomes of this process.

• If one or more of the applications to be integrated is new to the client, part of discovery is for the client to learn how the application(s) work, how that differs from their existing systems, and whether their current processes should change to accommodate the new systems.
• Integration projects typically involve different functional teams in the organization, so sometimes these projects create “a-ha” moments between these teams as they learn what happens upstream and downstream from the work they do.
• Workflow automation projects that span systems and functions will result in changes in day-to-day jobs. Less manual work, data entry, data validation etc. Client teams need to explore what the “art of the possible” is to streamline business processes and need to understand exactly what that will mean in each function.
• While it can be straightforward to automate a “standard” workflow, there are often many exceptional use-cases and scenarios to consider. The BA must help the client fully understand what should happen in each of these scenarios so that the automation doesn’t fail.
• The BA needs to help the client navigate between a wish list of automation requirements and a pragmatic specification that takes into account project budget and system complexity. It may be technically possible to automate all use-cases and scenarios, but pragmatically it likely doesn’t make sense to design an automation for a non-critical event that seldom occurs.
• Finally, the BA is a translator between business requirements and technical specifications. The outcome of discovery needs to be a clearly documented and unambiguous set of requirements that developers can use to build the integration.

Based on our experience with past projects, we can tailor discovery to identify any complexities quickly. For instance, in a Workday (HRIS) to Greenhouse (applicant tracking system) integration , we would ask about the current and desired approach to handle the recruiting, hiring and onboarding of contract workers. We’ll work through questions about which application should be the source of truth when a job is closed, whether the integration should automate the “hire” Business Process, whether a “hire” in Workday should result in a user being provisioned in Greenhouse, how re-hired employees will be identified, etc. Your experience and library of documentation from past projects are invaluable assets to ensure the full spectrum of potential use-cases is fully explored. Ultimately, a robust Business Analyst process will accelerate the documentation sign-off process, give confidence to the client team, and help avoid last-minute surprises when the integration moves to production. Explore our other blog, for twelve questions to consider when defining requirements for a data integration project.

As any BA can tell you, some of the issues with getting a document signed off are it may not be read carefully enough, or the right audience may not read it. While it’s important to be flexible during the life of a project, the more that can be done to reduce surprises, the better; so you want your documentation to be as close to representing the final state of the project as early as possible. It’s vital to write a list of tests and expected outcomes and deliver these to the customer as soon as possible.

Many BA’s may find that last point to seem backwards. After all, it is ultimately the customer who knows their business processes and what they want from the vendor. Saying that the vendor should write the test cases might sound like saying that the students should draft exam questions. But the point isn’t that the vendor defines what “success” looks like, the point is to show the vendor’s understanding of what the use cases are, and the expected outcomes. The consultants also have the benefit of having worked with the applications and workflow automation solutions with other clients, so they have insight regarding system limitations or potential unintended consequences of a given approach and how to design a test suite to detect and eliminate these issues. Documenting deliverables with this approach can help the client identify any misunderstandings before development has gone too far down the wrong path. Of course, the client is free to write their own test cases; the important thing is that it makes the deliverables clear.

The other advantage of providing the client with test cases is that the format of the document makes it clear what kind of information the developer needs to be able to address any bugs. A defect tracker can have headings like “reference number,” “screengrab,” etc. There are as many ways of tracking test results as there are clients, but whether they use Jira or Excel, at least they are aware of what will help the developer get to the bottom of issues most quickly.

Providing test cases also forces the customer to think about the resources that they will need to complete testing. The most successful projects include client representatives that are functional experts in each of the systems being integrated, not just the managers of the departments involved.

Now that we are confident that the scope is established, the developer can continue the build with confidence. Meanwhile, the BA can begin drafting support documentation such as the Operations Manual and the FMEA . These will have to be reviewed by the developer, but having the drafts shortens the project timeline and reduces demands on the developer when the clients need a fast turnaround, such as during User Acceptance Testing.

By promoting an understanding of what “success” looks like early on, and freeing up the developer’s time, the BA helps to smooth the path to go-live .

Contact us to learn more about our products and services.

Dispatch Integration is a software development and professional services firm that develops, delivers, and manages advanced data integration and workflow automation solutions. We exist to help organizations effectively deal with the complex and ever-changing need to integrate data and optimize end to end workflows between cloud-based, mission-critical applications.

Read More from Dispatch Integration: DIVE IN – Integration Project Management: Part 1 What’s an FMEA, and Why We Use It Automating Employee Discount Card Management Data Integration: Life in Production 

Ben Lemire is an experienced Business Analyst and Data Integration Specialist. He specializes in data migration, developing test plans, executing and leading UAT and writing operation manuals, and integration architecture documents.

• Ben Lemire https://dispatchintegration.com/author/ben-lemire/ Integrating UK Payroll with Workday
• Ben Lemire https://dispatchintegration.com/author/ben-lemire/ Twelve Questions to Consider When Defining Requirements for a Data Integration Project
• Ben Lemire https://dispatchintegration.com/author/ben-lemire/ What’s an FMEA, and Why We Use It

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At Dispatch Integration, we offer you more than just great integration solutions. Our blog is a value-added resource that helps you explore, learn, and make informed decisions when seeking your integration partner in the future.

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What’s Changed: 2024 Magic Quadrant for Supply Chain Planning Solutions

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The editors at Solutions Review have highlighted the updates in the 2024 edition of Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Supply Chain Planning Solutions and summarized the findings.

Analyst house Gartner Inc. recently released the 2024 version of its Magic Quadrant for Supply Chain Planning Solutions . As defined by Gartner , a supply chain planning (SCP) solution provides “technological support to enable a company to manage, link, align, collaborate and share its planning data across an extended supply chain.” It can support various planning initiatives, ranging from demand planning to supply-side response planning, strategic planning, execution-level planning, and more.

A supply chain planning solution’s standard capabilities include demand and supply planning, financial impact analysis, and support for aligning planning decisions across an enterprise. It also lists some “optional capabilities,” including advanced analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), digital supply chain twins, continuous planning, multienterprise planning, and supply chain design, modeling, and segmentation tools.

What’s Changed: 2024 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Supply Chain Planning Solutions

In this updated Magic Quadrant, Gartner identifies twenty of the most significant Supply Chain Planning solution  providers in the marketplace.  The researchers behind the report—Pia Orup Lund, Tim Payne, Joe Graham, Caleb Thomson, and Jan Snoeckx—evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of each provider listed and ranked them on the signature “Magic Quadrant” graph, which provides readers with an illustration of each vendor’s ability to execute their vision. The diagram includes four quadrants: leaders, challengers, niche players, and visionaries.

Below is a breakdown of each category and the companies associated with it. Solutions Review’s rundown of last year’s Magic Quadrant for Supply Chain Planning Solutions is available here .

Like last year, Kinaxis is the highest-ranked Leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant. Its RapidResponse solution provides midsize and large enterprises with SCP capabilities, including demand planning, supply planning, production planning, supply chain execution, and sales and operations planning (S&OP) . Its strengths as an SCP vendor include a unified user experience, its collection of certified third-party implementation partners, and an emphasis on planning automation and alignment functionalities.

Oracle earns its spot with the Oracle Fusion Cloud Supply Chain Planning solution, part of its broader Supply Chain & Manufacturing (SCM) suite. Oracle primarily works with midsize-to-large enterprises, emphasizing those needing end-to-end supply chain management and manufacturing support. It differentiates itself from other providers with its vision for composable architecture, competitive pricing plans, and planning granularity, which enables customers to plan at any level of detail.

OMP’s offering, Unison Planning, supports almost every aspect of SCP, from detailed scheduling to network modeling functionalities. The company primarily works with large enterprises in the process manufacturing marketplace and earns top marks for its third-party implementation partners and support of various planning strategies. Gartner also spotlights OMP’s modeling of constraints as a differentiating quality, as it goes beyond traditional supply chain constraints with an emphasis on analytics and sustainability .

Logility has moved from the Challenger category into the Leaders. Its Digital Supply Chain Platform provides midsize and large enterprises with E2E enterprise and multienterprise planning, network design, demand planning, S&OP, inventory optimization, and production scheduling capabilities. Alongside its acquisition of Starboard Solutions in 2022 and Garvis in 2023, Logility differentiates itself in the market with an “above-average” vision for AI and its highly ranked customer engagement, service, and support efforts.

Blue Yonder rounds out the Leaders category with its Luminate Platform, which provides enterprises across industries with end-to-end multienterprise planning capabilities. Its strengths as an SCP provider include its comprehensive microservices architecture, supply chain analytics, and features suite, which provides inventory optimization, demand planning, promotion planning, detailed scheduling, and order promotion.

Challengers

John Galt Solutions is a Challenger in this year’s Magic Quadrant. The Atlas Planning Platform provides midsize and large enterprises with end-to-end planning capabilities in process manufacturing, discrete manufacturing, wholesale, and distribution markets. Its strengths include its shorter-than-average implementation times, well-regarded customer support services, and its vision for decision automation, as seen in its Atlas Intelligent Workflows, which can orchestrate human and machine activities.

SAP is once again a Challenger in Gartner’s report. Its SCP solution, SAP Integrated Business Planning (IBP), provides midsize and large enterprises across industries with demand planning, inventory optimization, S&OP, and supply planning capabilities, alongside natively integrated solutions for scheduling and order promising. Other notable qualities include its above-average customer growth, customer engagement strategies, and its global network of distribution partners, value-added resellers, and implementation partners.

RELEX Solutions provides extensive SCP functionalities to companies across the retail, wholesale, consumer products, and food and beverage markets. It supports demand planning, manufacturing scheduling, and S&OP capabilities alongside retail-specific offerings, like trade and promotion management. Gartner also spotlights the company’s data management, customer engagement, and constraint modeling tools as notable features.

Arkieva has moved from a Visionary to a Challenger in this year’s reports. The Arkieva Enterprise platform provides enterprises in process manufacturing, retail, consumer products, telecom, and utility industries with planning capabilities, including top-rated S&OE and execution visibility features reinforced by machine-driven decisions. Other strengths include its planning decision alignment, ability to support its customers’ data model needs, and vision for maintaining a scalable SCP solution.

Anaplan closes out the category with its Connected Planning platform, which equips enterprises with demand planning, supply planning, S&OP, procurement planning, financial planning, and extended planning and analysis (xP&A) capabilities. It receives high marks for its unified user experience, robust workflow management tools, and configurable user screens. It plans to expand its analytics suite with a GenAI co-pilot. Gartner spotlights Anaplan’s open architecture as a differentiating strength, making the Connected Planning platform one of the most extensible solutions on the market.

Niche Players

Adexa’s digital SCP solution focuses on providing midsize to large enterprises in North America, Western Europe, and Asia/Pacific (including Japan) with the tools they need to deliver accurate end-to-end (E2E) plans. The company stands out in the SCP marketplace with its straightforward pricing model, support for planning at highly granular levels with detailed scheduling, strong attribute-based planning capabilities, and its vision for the range of constraints it can model.

Coupa is a Niche Player in this year’s report, a change from its placement in the Challenger category in 2023. Its AI-driven platform provides midsize to large enterprises across industries with a collection of business applications across supply chain planning, including strategic network design, sourcing, supply planning, demand planning, inventory optimization, and more. Strengths include its implementation support via third-party consultancy partners, a high-scoring customer experience, and configured functionality coverage.

ToolsGroup is one of the new additions to Gartner’s report. Its SCP solution, Service Optimizer 99+ (SO99+), provides demand planning, replenishment, inventory planning, S&OP, transportation planning, and optimization capabilities. The company earns its place on the list with its “above-average” vision for handling uncertainty in supply chains, a transparent pricing model, affordable entry-level cost, and Inventory Hub offering, which supports real-time upstream and downstream latency to detect events in the supply chain.

Slimstock’s Slim4 platform focuses on inventory management, supplier collaboration, and demand and replenishment planning capabilities. The company primarily works with midsize enterprises across industries, focusing on wholesale and distribution markets in Western Europe and North America. Slimstock is well-regarded for its organic sales strategy, straightforward pricing model, and ability to be used as a single global reference for SCP.

AIMMS is another addition to this year’s report. Its low-code/no-code platform allows midsize and large enterprises in multiple industries to model and deploy SCP apps across their various planning layers . Gartner highlights AIMMS’ range of resource types and plan granularity as two of its greatest strengths, enabling users to plan at whatever level of granularity they need. The provider also earns high marks for its overall viability in the SCP market thanks to its high cloud deployment ratio and employee satisfaction scores.

Blue Ridge is the final newcomer in this year’s Magic Quadrant. With its Xpression Planning Platform, Blue Ridge provides distribution-intensive organizations with supply chain capabilities like demand planning, S&OP, procurement planning, and more. The company differentiates itself with its service cost and pricing strategies and singular focus on supply chain planning, which supports its organic growth strategy and viability in the market.

Visionaries

o9 Solutions is a Visionary in this year’s report, which marks a shift from its spot in the Leaders category in the 2023 iteration. Its o9 platform broadly focuses on providing planning capabilities across demand and supply use cases to help large enterprises in North America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and Asia/Pacific. Its strengths as an SCP vendor include its digital supply chain twin functionalities, the extensibility of its platform, and its customer engagement initiatives, which include everything from user conferences to road shows, webinars, executive councils, and more.

GAINSystems primarily works with companies in industrial manufacturing, distribution, defense, retail, and other similar industries. Its GAINS solution provides users with demand management, supply planning, network design, and inventory optimization capabilities. Additional strengths include its range of analytics tools, positive customer experiences, and support for different layers of planning-centric capabilities.

e2open returns to the Visionary category in this Magic Quadrant. Its SCP solutions are focused on integrated planning, with additional support for supply network and demand planning use cases. Gartner spotlights e2open’s vision for leveraging advanced technologies—i.e., deep learning, process mining, and several machine learning techniques— as one of its most notable strengths. Other differentiating qualities include a well-regarded customer engagement strategy and the platform’s ability to model different constraint types.

Dassault Systèmes closes the report with the DELMIA Quintiq solution, which focuses on integrated planning tools for various resources, including people, machines, materials, and transportation. According to Gartner, the vendor’s strengths as an SCP provider include the breadth of its capabilities, its ability to deal with complex supply chains and different constraints, and its ability to be deployed on various hyper-scale clouds or as an on-premises option.

This article was written by William Jepma on April 30, 2024

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William Jepma

Writer, editor, and analyst.

William Jepma is an editor, writer, and analyst at Solutions Review who aims to keep readers across industries informed and excited about the newest developments in Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Business Process Management (BPM), Marketing Automation, and other WorkTech categories. You can connect with him on LinkedIn or reach him via email at [email protected].

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Business Planning Lead Analyst-Vice President

This role is for a Business Planning Lead Analyst in the newly formed O&T Analytics & Decision Management team, specifically Vendor Optimization. The charter of this team is to partner with stakeholders to d evelop vendor management strategy to identify optimization opportunities for hardware, software and 3rd party resources across O&T.  The team provides consistent approach and guidelines around vendor spend to ensure adequate guardrails are in place and to help drive accountability model of spend. Developed communication and diplomacy skills are required in order to guide, influence and convince others, in particular colleagues in other areas. This role provides an opportunity to make significant impact on the area through complex deliverables. Responsibilities:

• Help teams to synthesize clear findings and recommendations from complex result sets using qualitative and quantitative analysis methods.
• Partner with Sourcing and stakeholders to help reduce costs and improve efficiency by consolidating/rationalizing suppliers and streamlining processes.
• Identify data patterns, trends, and provide insights to enhance business decision making capability in business planning, process improvement, solution assessment etc.
• Enhance transparency of current spending to identify opportunities within each Commodity.
• Identify opportunities to streamline processes to simplify decision-making, drive accountability and be a key enabler of best practices.
• Provide though leadership, with ability to align operational process with organizational strategies, with experience in strategic planning and execution.
• Collaborate with stakeholders to understand their information needs and requirements, utilize input to design and deliver strategy for integration of data, technology, and reporting strategies.
• Manage engagement of key stakeholders and drive adoption of recommendations and solutions
• Support strategic expense management exercises by working closely with Senior management team including ad-hoc analysis and reporting.
• Continuously improve processes and strategies by exploring and evaluating new data sources, tools, and capabilities
• Develop and maintain relationships with key partners and senior management to influence behavior and decision making.

Knowledge & Experience:

• Ability to succinctly articulate data insights using business intelligence and data visualization techniques.
• Demonstrated ability to synthesize and analyze complex data, interpret trends or patterns and transform it into actionable information.
• Problem structuring and analytic capabilities – the ability to take a complex problem and organize it into discrete pieces for solution.
• Willingness to work / thrive in a pressured environment with tight deadlines.
• Excellent planning, analytical and organizational skills to manage multiple demands.
• Commitment to quality, attention to detail, and continuous improvement.
• Strong interpersonal and communications skills (both verbal and written), tailoring style to suit the audience at all levels across the firm.
• Stakeholder management skills with the ability to influence cross functional teams.
• Ability to translate and convey financial concepts to O&T teams with varying levels of financial knowledge.
• Sound judgment and strong leadership skills, with a proven track record in managing teams and making a positive impact on the organization.

Qualifications:

• 10+ years of experience in financial management related field
• Minimum Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Accounting or related field; Masters or additional qualifications preferred
• Experience within financial services and specifically O&T organization preferred.
• Proven track record of partnering with cross functional teams/hierarchies across Operations, FP&A, Procurement and Controllers to achieve a common objective.
• Experienced leader building and fostering a collaborative team environment, promoting teamwork, trust, and mutual respect.
• High emotional intelligence to navigate the team through a complex matrix of stakeholders.
• High level of proficiency with the MS Office Suite is essential.
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Analyst Eye on unleashing procurement’s strategic impact and driving working capital optimization

05/08/2024 By Xavier Olivera

• Dynamic Discounting
• e-Invoicing
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• Working Capital Management

Working capital optimization is not merely a financial strategy; it is the lifeline of business operations. It encompasses the management of short-term assets and liabilities to ensure liquidity, meet financial obligations and support growth initiatives. Typically, people may assume this area of activity belongs purely to Finance. 

However, S2P solutions, such as GEP, SAP Ariba, Ivalua and others, have been increasingly investing in building capabilities that directly or indirectly support working capital optimization. For instance, SAP's acquisition of the working capital optimization solution Taulia in 2022, which we covered and analyzed at the time. Additionally, companies like GEP, Jaggaer, and Ivalua have extended support for supply chain management, while Coupa has integrated its Treasury module with its Payments and AP automation solution. But even in more subtle cases, it becomes clear after some thought that procurement’s impact on operational efficiency and savings would play a pivotal role in working capital optimization. But understanding and maximizing that influence requires some further conceptual work. 

It should be noted from the outset that these are not final, definitive conclusions. Rather, it would be best to treat thoughts as a starting point to consider how working capital can become better optimized with procurement’s help.

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