Symphony Orchestrates S&OP; to Deliver Fast Insights, Aligned Plans and Superior Results

The “new normal” is what some are calling our current challenging economic environment. Balancing supply and demand has never been more challenging. Organizations are misaligned, planning tools are proving to be inadequate and service expectations are skyrocketing. Increased demand volatility and supply chain complexity are driving higher inventory and operating costs, stressing working capital. New buying behaviors and anxiety in the supply chain are wreaking havoc on forecasts and plans. Planners are struggling for new insights as the traditional key indicators and forecasting assumptions are proving inadequate to manage in the “new normal.”

While companies have invested heavily in S&OP; software and consulting services, many are still unable to effectively manage through today's challenges. Getting the wrong answer faster or more consistently doesn't help. Similarly, operations executives have enough expensive consultant deliverables gathering dust while the company's heroes jump through hoops to meet customer expectations. And despite previous efforts, the information needed to make timely and accurate decisions is still scattered in different systems and formats, making visibility difficult.

As a result of these shortcomings, operations executives often feel stuck. It's difficult to invest more to solve the problems because of the low return from previous initiatives. Yet, supply chains are getting more complex and expensive to operate, bad decisions are becoming increasingly damaging, and customers are expecting higher levels of service. Something must be done, and leading companies are doing it.

• Improved revenue by 1% - 2%
• Reduced Inventory by 20% - 40%
• Reduced COGS by 5% - 10%
• Decreased Operating Expense by 5% - 10%
• Improved forecast accuracy at the SKU level
• Improved supplier fill rate

Symphony orchestrates S&OP; by providing a world class team and a proven approach called, Make the Numbers ™ or MTNA, powered by next generation technology. Fast insights come from working collaboratively with your stakeholders to bring together all of the information required for fact-based decisions. Everyone is aligned around one set of numbers, thereby producing superior results. There is no software to buy and no study to put on the shelf. We bring it all with us, and we're entirely focused on delivering value from day one.

Symphony domain practitioners facilitate balance between demand, production and inventory by collaborating with existing organizations and planners, capturing decisions and providing a single well of truth across the organization.

Symphony technology helps planners consistently identify root causes and the actions required to resolve them. Tribal knowledge is institutionalized. Structured workflows guide the planner through multiple prescribed analytic paths. A collaborative framework allows multiple planners to work and shape the same plan simultaneously. Operational plans are provided to all functional areas in terms that are meaningful to them, including senior management.

We work with you to clean up and consolidate data that is vital to the S&OP; process. Detailed data issues are identified and provided to data owners for resolution. Meanwhile, our logical models sit above the data where rules can systematically manage issues and enable immediate progress. Improvement is no longer a hostage to the state of your data.

We collaboratively develop and execute a plan to achieve the right mix of client-based and Symphony-based S&OP; capabilities over time to suit your organizations long term objectives. We deliver value now and internal improvements over time.

• Balance demand, production and inventory for an item by leveraging one planner across all three variables
• Plan at the grain and roll up the results
• Use inventory bands to smooth volatility in the production plan
• View the results through functional lenses such as financial impact, Sales available to promise etc.