Category

Business

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
man reading newspaper while sitting near table with smartphone and cupBusinessPlanning

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
Business

What happens where there is no supply plan?

Stripping back all the frills and thrills you are left with the core purpose of IBP; to converge, align and integrate the financial plan, demand plan and supply plan. So, what happens when the supply plan changes daily, that is, there really is no static supply plan? However absurd this might sound, it’s not as uncommon as perhaps you might think. For business with large SKU proliferation, servicing a large distribution network or customer base, typical of FMCG organizations or OEM aftermarket channels, it is not unusual to allow orders to flow directly into the production planning processes. Perhaps, there…
Kim Britton
April 7, 2021
BusinessIntegrated Business PlanningOperations

The Importance of Capable People in the IBP Process

Integrated business planning facilitates a systemic cadence that enables leadership to make the appropriate business decisions to achieve their long-term ambitions.   This is accomplished by aligning plans, understanding assumptions, evaluating opportunities and vulnerabilities, and perpetually reviewing the different scenarios for optimization.  Too often during an IBP implementation, the process is focused on establishing the various reviews centered on the mechanics of the process rather than the intent.  The process itself will not yield the desired results for the business, it is dependent on the right capability of the people to be thoughtful about what is important for discussions.  Consider…
Debbie Evans
September 24, 2020
Business PlanningBusinessOperations

Discovering A New Idea

It’s been decided, the benefits are too great to be ignored, the business case is indisputable, the business is going to implement integrated business planning. Three months later the design workshops have been completed, key roles have been defined and appointments made. Notions of advancements in demand planning, inventory reduction, service level improvements now await, it’s only months away! The enterprise now looks to the integrated business planning leader in excited anticipation of fulfilling the promises which lead the business here. So, it begins! There’s a belief the decision to implement integrated business planning (IBP) itself brings the implied rewards…
Kim Britton
September 21, 2020