Integrated Business Planning

Let’s Rethink How We Manage Business

 

IBP is provocative, challenging, and, at times, contentious, yet the benefits are unquestionable. We have experience navigating the dynamics which impede IBP implementation in a variety of different businesses. This experience affords us the opportunity to help others take the concepts of IBP and provide pragmatic operational solutions, avoiding rabbit-holes, minefields, and some of the frustration associated with the deployment.  This site is created to provide online support, answer questions, and help others on their IBP implementation journey.

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Business

Aligning Business Chaos with Integrated Business Planning

I have a business with a great product and tremendous opportunity with a great team, however I am concerned with our ability to achieve our aggressive growth targets. It seems like we have so many issues with just getting through the month on plan that I am concerned our longer-term goals just won’t happen.  Our current sales plans continue to decrease each month and yet supply chain backorders continue to increase.  My sales team is suggesting that revenue growth will turn around next quarter, but our supply chain continues to struggle with the current demand claiming that the forecast is…
Debbie Evans
May 31, 2023
Business

“You can’t ship to last Tuesday” — Why Past-Due Orders Don’t Belong (and how they drive planners out of the system)

Time travel isn’t a supply strategy. Yet many ERPs carry past-due production, purchase, and transfer orders—ghost promises from yesterday. Keeping them doesn’t make you on time; it breaks your ERP, corrodes behavior, and pushes planners to run the business in spreadsheets. Here’s why those zombies need to go—and what to do instead. Why past-due is poison A past-due order is an open supply order with a due date earlier than today. Every day it remains late, your system pretends yesterday had infinite capacity and suppliers teleported parts. Cute fiction; ugly consequences. What it does to your ERP Lies to Sales…
Debbie Evans
October 6, 2025
Business

Navigating Success: How Integrated Business Planning Can Propel New Businesses to Prosperity

Starting a new business venture can be an exhilarating yet daunting journey. Entrepreneurs often wear multiple hats, juggling countless responsibilities while striving to achieve sustainable growth. In this dynamic and competitive landscape, the concept of Integrated Business Planning (IBP) is often thought of as something for more mature businesses, but nothing can be further from the truth.  IBP is the valuable compass that can steer new businesses toward success by aligning all functions towards those strategic growth ambitions. Understanding Integrated Business Planning At its core, Integrated Business Planning (IBP) is a holistic approach to business management that aligns various organizational…
Debbie Evans
September 4, 2023
BusinessPlanning

Planning for uncertainty, responding with agility

“We have implemented Integrated Business Planning (IBP) but our performance doesn’t seem to be improving, why is it not working?”   This is a common frustration for many organizations that have embarked on the journey of IBP to obtain this miraculous alignment between supply and demand only to be left with minimal performance improvement.  In the early days of an IBP implementation the focus is hyperinflated on the business’s ability to demand plan within reasonable level of accuracy and eliminating bias, however determining the reasonable level of accuracy can often be subjective.   A supply chain manager that expects 98% accuracy in…
Debbie Evans
May 5, 2021