Sales and Demand Planning
One volume plan for sales, operations and finance
When sales, operations and finance plan the same volumes, the revenue plan and the production plan stop disagreeing.
The problem
Sales plans in the CRM or a spreadsheet by account, operations plans in units by SKU, finance plans revenue by product group, and the three are reconciled in a meeting once a quarter. Price and mix assumptions are implicit. Forecast accuracy is nobody's number.
What good looks like
One volume, three views
Sales, operations and finance read the same plan at their own level.
Price and mix explicit
Revenue is volume times price with mix visible, not a single typed number.
A baseline plus judgement
A forecast model proposes, sales adjusts, and the system keeps both.
Accuracy measured
Forecast against actual by owner, every month.
How we approach it
Step 1
Agree the planning level and calendar across sales, operations and finance.
Step 2
Build the demand model in SAP Analytics Cloud with history from S/4HANA and a statistical baseline.
Step 3
Add price, mix and the conversion to revenue.
Step 4
Run the monthly cycle and hand over.
Standard content we start from
SAP ships three relevant SAP Analytics Cloud packages: Commercial Planning, Consensus Net Revenue Planning and Rapid Sales Planning and Analysis. Between them they cover volume, price and net revenue planning by customer and product, consensus between sales, marketing and finance, and a statistical baseline with override.
We start from the one that fits the client's calendar, then add the reconciliation to the financial plan, the connection to IBP where it exists, and forecast accuracy by owner, which none of the packages track.
Questions people ask
Talk to us
If the sales number and the operations number are different every month, start here.