Category

Business

Business

Why Executive Leadership Wins With Integrated Business Plannin

Every executive I know is drowning in data — dashboards, forecasts, KPIs, scenario models — yet still feels like they are flying blind when it matters most. This isn’t a data problem. It’s a decision problem. Integrated Business Planning (IBP) exists for one reason: to give executive leadership a single, trusted version of the business so they can make the right decisions at the right time, before problems become expensive. IBP quietly becomes one of the most powerful leadership tools in a company because it replaces reaction with foresight. Instead of managing by exception — waiting for something to break…
Debbie Evans
January 29, 2026
Business

Truth Beats Stretch: An S&OE Story

On Monday at 8:07 a.m., the war room smelled like dry-erase and coffee. Ravi, the supply planner, clicked his laptop shut with a little flourish. “Good news,” he said. “I bumped the plan eight percent. Bit of a stretch, but it’ll light a fire.” Maria, who ran the bottleneck filler line, raised an eyebrow. “We have one filler,” she said. “It runs at one filler speed.” “Totally,” Ravi said. “But if we aim higher, we’ll get more. People step up.” By noon the “stretch” had turned into schedule musical chairs. To hit Ravi’s number, the plan jammed in two extra…
Debbie Evans
October 8, 2025
man reading newspaper while sitting near table with smartphone and cupBusiness

“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

Supply Plan vs. Demand Plan — What’s the Difference and Why It Matters

Think of the demand plan as the company’s best read on the market—an unconstrained forecast of what customers will buy if nothing gets in the way. It’s built from history, seasonality, price and promo plans, sales pipeline, and a healthy dose of competitive intel. It should be honest about uncertainty and explicit about assumptions, because its job is to preserve a clean market signal and highlight revenue risk and opportunity. The supply plan hears that signal and replies, “Great—here’s the constrained, feasible way we’ll make, buy, and ship it.” Supply translates the demand plan into real-world actions: purchase orders, production…
Debbie Evans
October 2, 2025
man reading newspaper while sitting near table with smartphone and cupBusiness

Navigating the Acronyms: Understanding the Differences between S&OP, SIOP, and IBP

In the world of supply chain management, acronyms abound. Three of the most frequently used, and often confused, are S&OP, SIOP, and IBP. While they all share common objectives in optimizing business processes, they are distinct in their approaches and scopes. In this article, we will delve into the differences between S&OP (Sales and Operations Planning), SIOP (Sales, Inventory, Operations Planning), and IBP (Integrated Business Planning), shedding light on their unique characteristics and how they contribute to the success of an organization.  If you asked 10 people to describe the differences, you likely will get 10 different answers.  Here are…
Debbie Evans
September 24, 2023
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
pexels-photo-704767.jpegBusiness

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

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
Business

Why deploying Integrated Business Planning is so hard..

Conceptually, integrated business planning isn’t complicated to discern and as a result, many organizations readily take on this journey of enlightenment. This prospective planned utopia of enlightenment that provide a regular cadence for aligning plans between our product portfolio, commercial demand and supply chain that enables business leadership to orchestrate the necessary business decisions for the achievement of strategic growth over the long horizon.  How hard can it be, right?  Unfortunately, for those that have led an organization through such a journey, it is by far one of the most challenging roles to undertake and definitely not for the faint…
Debbie Evans
December 1, 2021
Business

Finance and Integrated Business Planning

The real value of integrated business planning (IBP) is the ability to establish credible plans that enable the business leadership to make the appropriate tactical and strategic decisions that aligns with the business’s ambitions over the long-term horizon.   To accomplish this, the IBP process requires transparency of bottom-up plans with credible assumptions that can be financialized that leadership trusts.   Unfortunately, integrating finance into the IBP process can be challenging for an array of reasons that often result in financial leaders becoming frustrated.  This frustration is recognized when you hear comments such as, “the business doesn’t know how to plan”, or…
Debbie Evans
June 1, 2021