Comments on: 5 Suggestions To Improve Pre-S&OP

By: Ha Nguyen

Ha Nguyen — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:45:42 +0000

Thanks for your valuable advices. It seems that in my company, we have only the monthly S&OP meeting (not distinguish between Pre-S&OP and Executive S&OP meeting) where some people from Commercial Dept. meet someone from Supply Chain Dept. to discuss or fix the monthly Sales Forecast and inform sales/marketing activities in coming months, if any. I feel that people in our S&OP meeting was not really aware of its important.

By: Sacha Branco

Sacha Branco — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:43:43 +0000

Thanks for the suggestions! They will be really helpful to make a non borrowing and more productive meeting. My experience shows that if there are too many people present but not participating in the Pre-S&OP meeting, there is a danger to put the process in discredit. In this case, the participants will start to come less prepared to the meeting.

By: Ken Duratti

Ken Duratti — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:18:58 +0000

Thanks Eric for the reminder that it is important to separate the Pre-S&OP activities from the Executive S&OP process. I agree it is critical to standardize the dates, content, KPIs, and responsibilities to ensure accountability at all levels, and with your thought that more flexibility can be allowed in the Pre-S&OP process to accommodate the larger number and mix of people involved, as long as accountability is maintained.
Rotating stakeholders in and out of the demand, supply, and Pre-S&OP consensus meetings is a great idea that can also provide an excellent opportunity to expose less experienced staff members to the process.
Having a member of the Executive S&OP team occasionally sitting in on the Pre-S&OP meetings is valuable way to build awareness, facilitate consensus, and improve the process, and I believe similar value can be provided by allowing Pre-S&OP participants to observe the S& OP process at the executive level.