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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Integrated Business PlanningStructure

The Importance of Strategy for IBP

Integrated business planning designs a business structure that facilitates alignment across the organization with transparency to performance issues, that enables the business to focus on the critical decisions in order to achieve business long-term ambitions. Although many leaders in an organization are eager to realize the potential benefits that are derived from a fully operational IBP process, many are not cognizant of the significant change such an implementation will need to endure.  It is common that deployments of IBP began within the supply chain organization by enabling alignment between supply and demand, however, it quickly becomes exhausted by foundational capability…
Debbie Evans
September 21, 2020
Business

Integrated Business Planning for New Start-up businesses

Integrated Business Planning (IBP) is a comprehensive planning process that aligns business strategy with operational plans and financial forecasts. It is an essential tool for any business looking to achieve its goals and objectives. While IBP is often associated with established businesses, it can also benefit new start-up businesses. In this article, we will explore the benefits of integrated business planning for a new start-up business. Provides a framework for growth: IBP provides a framework for growth by aligning business strategy with operational plans and financial forecasts. This helps start-ups to identify areas of growth and to create a plan…
Debbie Evans
May 1, 2023
BusinessIntegrated Business Planning

Challenges of IBP

After 8 years implementing, coaching businesses and designing Integrated Business Planning (IBP) processes I have accumulated a long list of common challenges that often plague IBP deployments.   To understand all the challenges it is important to understand the intent and purpose of IBP. To contextualize how IBP should work in a business it is best to illustrate with an example.  Let say you want to grow your business from $500M to $1B in 3 years while maintaining a 15% EBITDA.   This is the focus to which the IBP process is centered for all the 5 steps, product portfolio review, commercial…
Debbie Evans
May 24, 2021
Business

IBP Is Not a Forecasting Process (Despite What Everyone Thinks)

Every time a company decides to “implement IBP,” the conversation usually starts the same way. “We need a better forecast.” And just like that, the entire organization begins a heroic quest to improve forecast accuracy — new software, new models, more meetings, more spreadsheets, more debates about whether next month should be up 3% or down 2%. Meanwhile, leadership is quietly hoping this will somehow fix inventory, service, profitability, growth, capacity constraints, and the general feeling that the business is being run by a series of surprises. Unfortunately, a better forecast will not solve those problems. A forecast is simply…
Debbie Evans
March 16, 2026