Sales & operations planning in a global business

Abstract

As companies become more global and begin to outsource manufacturing and other services, the uncertainty in the supply resource increases. Demand uncertainties increase as these same companies expand into new countries to serve new customers. The globalization of business has created problems that many companies do not know how to overcome. One way of overcoming these challenges is to implement a process called global sales and operations planning (S&OP). Sales and operations planning is a collaborative process that aligns the supply side of an organization with the demand side. Aligning the goals of the different departments eliminates the "silo" mentality and creates a streamlined organization. This streamlined organization works as one team with the goal of meeting the financial expectations set by the executive team. Global sales and operations planning is a process used to match supply and demand throughout the world. To do this effectively, the process must be divided into multiple processes based on the characteristics of the supply chain for the product, the business units within the company, and geography that the business unit is located in.

(cont.) When the S&OP process is divided correctly, it allows the executive members of the company to communicate financial expectations to each of the business units, while the individual business units can match the supply and demand characteristics of the product. Vascucorp. is a company that is facing the same problems that many other companies face when trying to implement an S&OP process into their company. This thesis will focus on trying to form a common platform that companies can use to implement a successful global sales and operations planning process.