Siloed teams and misaligned plans are a bane for organizations when it comes to demand forecasting and planning. When operations, sales, and product teams use disparate data, apply differing assumptions and perspectives, this creates misalignment in an organization’s overall expectations and performance. This is especially true in supply chain management. Surprisingly, only 6% of firms say they have achieved full supply chain visibility. And supply chain visibility has risen from the sixth most important priority in 2015 to the third most important in 2017. Slow, error-prone manual planning cycles can create a mismatch in supply and demand, overstocking, or stock outs. Lack of timely allocation of resources means unfulfilled orders which results in substandard product quality. And all the delays can create issues in getting your next planning cycle together before the holidays hit!
