Insights Blog

Inventory Fitness: FAQ – Question 14 of 14

During the recent webinar, Inventory Fitness – Governance, Targets, and Segmentation, we took audience questions and answered them. Here are some issues…

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Inventory Fitness: FAQ – Question 13 of 14

During the recent webinar, Inventory Fitness – Governance, Targets, and Segmentation, we took audience questions and answered them. Here are some issues…

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Inventory Fitness: FAQ – Question 12 of 14

During the recent webinar, Inventory Fitness – Governance, Targets, and Segmentation, we took audience questions and answered them. Here are some issues…

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Inventory Fitness: FAQ – Question 11 of 14

During the recent webinar, Inventory Fitness – Governance, Targets, and Segmentation, we took audience questions and answered them. Here are some issues…

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Inventory Fitness: FAQ – Question 10 of 14

During the recent webinar, Inventory Fitness – Governance, Targets, and Segmentation, we took audience questions and answered them. Here are some issues…

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Inventory Fitness: FAQ – Question 9 of 14

During the recent webinar, Inventory Fitness – Governance, Targets, and Segmentation, we took audience questions and answered them. Here are some issues…

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Inventory Fitness: FAQ – Question 8 of 14

During the recent webinar, Inventory Fitness – Governance, Targets, and Segmentation, we took audience questions and answered them. Here are some issues…

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Inventory Fitness: FAQ – Question 7 of 14

During the recent webinar, Inventory Fitness – Governance, Targets, and Segmentation, we took audience questions and answered them. Here are some issues…

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Inventory Fitness: FAQ – Question 6 of 14

During the recent webinar, Inventory Fitness – Governance, Targets, and Segmentation, we took audience questions and answered them. Here are some issues…

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Inventory Fitness: FAQ – Question 5 of 14

During the recent webinar, Inventory Fitness – Governance, Targets, and Segmentation, we took audience questions and answered them. Here are some issues…

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Inventory Fitness: FAQ – Question 4 of 14

During the recent webinar, Inventory Fitness – Governance, Targets, and Segmentation, we took audience questions and answered them. Here are some issues…

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Inventory Fitness: FAQ – Question 3 of 14

During the recent webinar, Inventory Fitness – Governance, Targets, and Segmentation, we took audience questions and answered them. Here are some issues…

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Inventory Fitness: FAQ – Question 2 of 14

During the recent webinar, Inventory Fitness – Governance, Targets, and Segmentation, we took audience questions and answered them. Here are some issues…

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Inventory Fitness: FAQ – Question 1 of 14

During the recent webinar, Inventory Fitness – Governance, Targets, and Segmentation, we took audience questions and answered them. Here are…

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Integrated Business Planning: How to Design a Reliable Demand Review

By Charity Lopez and Greg Spira Businesses that develop a strong demand planning capability know what consumers want and need…

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The Fundamental Element in Planning – Trust

By: Greg Spira and Charity Lopez No one can predict the future, but businesses that plan well are better poised…

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How to Overcome the Challenge of Demonstrating ROI for Demand Plan Management

By: Greg Spira and Todd Ferguson A new regional operations leader discovered an issue with his company’s demand plans: they…

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How to Determine the Root Cause of Inventory Management Problems

By: Leon Dixon When a company has an inventory problem—whether it is too much, too little, or the wrong mix—the…

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Integrated Tactical Planning (ITP) vs. Sales and Operations Execution (S&OE)

by: Todd Ferguson and Wilson Stefano, Jr In response to changing business conditions that impact near-term execution, many companies run…

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Strategic Vs. Tactical Planning

By: Todd Ferguson Each level of the organization needs processes to achieve strategic, long-term, and short-term goals for a business…

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One simple way to measure the effectiveness of your IBP / S&OP process

By: Greg Spira I was recently chatting with a colleague who is working on the integration of an acquisition.  He…

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Become better prepared for crisis — and opportunity — with effective Sc...

By: Timm Reiher Change is inevitable for every company. Creating plans designed to stand up to anything the future holds…

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Emotional Intelligence

By: Donald McNaughton ‘Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our…

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Why should your CEO care about Demand Plan Bias?

By: Greg Spira There are many ways to measure the characteristics of a Demand Plan. Its accuracy can be calculated…

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Facilitating the Demand Review

By: Greg Spira It’s a commonly shared best-practice that demand planning is a multiple-input process, through which different commercial perspectives…

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Planning for New Products

By Greg Spira Planning demand for existing products already being sold is tough enough, where consumer and market behaviors are…

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Using Integrated Business Planning to boost your Customer Lifetime Value

Written by: David Goddard You know the old line: It’s better to keep an existing customer than try to find…

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The Fundamentals of Business Performance Improvement

Written by: Daniel Meier Whether you’re an up-and-coming startup or an established enterprise, sustainable growth is the name of the…

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Skills

Written By Donald McNaughton ‘Talent you have naturally. Skill is only developed by hours and hours and hours of beating on…

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Demand Planning – Nomads of the Org Chart

Written by Greg Spira Much like Godwin’s law, as any discussion about Demand Planning grows longer, the probability of debating…

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Who Are The Customers of the Demand Plan?

Written by Greg Spira When we use the term customers in the context of demand planning, most often we are talking about…

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The Vital Role of Finance in IBP – Part 1

Written by Crystal Lee Oh, the clichés modern media has created! Consider the stereotypes that are all too common in…

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Go Get’s, Gap Fillers, Plugs, and other Bad Behaviors

Written by Greg Spira In one of my earlier posts, I stressed the point that eliminating Bias in the demand…

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IBP From the Eyes of the CFO Part 3 – Time is Money

Written by Crystal Lee While so often we talk about the need to be decisive, sometimes being decisive, means deciding…

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What is Best-In-Class Forecast Accuracy?

Written by Greg Spira When working with companies to improve their demand planning, I regularly get the question: “What is…

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How Integrated Business Planning Helped One Company Start Looking to the Future

As a 120-year-old institution, the salad dressing manufacturer Marzetti had survived many of the ups and downs of the ever-changing…

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IBP From the Eyes of a CFO Part 2 – The Good Sherpa

Written by Crystal Lee Imagine deciding to climb Mount Everest. This 29,000-foot journey is not only difficult, it is dangerous….

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IBP From the Eyes of a CFO Part 1- Covenants of Performance

Written by Crystal Lee The increased accountability that comes with implementing an Integrated Business Plan sometimes isn’t welcomed news within…

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The Importance of Language in Planning

Written by Greg Spira One of the first things that I do when working with a company is carefully listen…

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Learning

Written By Donald McNaughton ‘Tell me, and I forget. Teach me, and I remember. Involve me, and I learn.’ — Benjamin…

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Money Talks

Written by Crystal Lee Sometimes the most profound truths are quite simple. And, as it pertains to business, the simple…

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Good Questions Drive Good Assumptions

Written by Greg Spira Often businesses struggle with a demand planning process anchored in numbers.  If you are spending your…

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Understanding

Written By Donald McNaughton ‘Commitment without understanding is a liability.’ — Oliver Wight One of the many things that my mentor…

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Mentors

Written By Donald McNaughton ‘The delicate balance of mentoring someone is not creating them in your own image but giving them…

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Add Visuals to Drive Action

Written by Crystal Lee One of the most successful television shows of all time is AMC’s classic period piece Mad…

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Stories Tell More Than Words Alone Ever Can

Written by Crystal Lee When you think back on your time in college / university, you will likely recall at…

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Overriding the Demand Plan

Written by Greg Spira When someone wants to change a plan number, the questions to ask are: “Why? Which assumption…

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Passion

Written By Donald McNaughton ‘In all my research, the greatest leaders looked inward and were able to tell a good story…

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Tactical Execution Builds a Bridge to Long-Term Success

Written by Crystal Lee I have two friends with a history of air travel anxiety. Though they each had been…

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Unlock the Agility of a Sales And Operations (Re)Plan

Written by Crystal Lee When re-planning is ingrained in a business’s IBP/S&OP process, management teams are able to more efficiently…

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Gratitude

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Trust In the Demand Plan

Written by Greg Spira Leaders, like most people, make decisions and operate on that which they trust. If they don’t…

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Make it Happen With a Scenario Management Leader

Written by Crystal Lee There was once a company on the rise, who decided to take hold of their promising…

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Sharing

Written By Donald McNaughton After more than 21 years of supporting clients through education and consulting services I am periodically asked…

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Scenario Planning – An Agile Framework to Develop Responses to Coronavirus

By Pamelyn Lindsey, CSCP, Oliver Wight Business Advisor With the impacts of the Coronavirus continuing to advance, how can we…

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Five reasons why your business will miss out on post COVID-19 opportunities

By Stuart Harman, Partner at Oliver Wight Asia Pacific As countries, economies, communities and companies continue to work through the…

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How do you plan for something that you can’t predict? Lessons from Coronavirus

By Stuart Harman and Rod Hozack, Partners at Oliver Wight Asia Pacific With the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak that originated in…

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Should you throw out your Integrated Business Planning process in the curre...

By Stuart Harman and Rod Hozack, Partners at Oliver Wight Asia Pacific One CEO recently asked us “how do we…

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Coronavirus: Can you plan for a pandemic?

By Andy Walker, Partner at Oliver Wight EAME It’s hard to imagine that two months ago hardly anyone had heard…

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Re-aligning demand plans to reflect reality: The importance of demand assum...

By Debbie Bowen-Heaton, Oliver Wight Partner The last few weeks have drastically reinforced to me and my clients, the need…

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Why does integrated planning remain important during the coronavirus crisis?

By Oliver Wight CEO, Les Brookes Over the past few weeks I have come across some comments dismissing the capability…

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The Integrated Tactical Planning Sequence – Part 6 of 6

By Rod Hozack, Partner at Oliver Wight Asia Pacific Is there a sequence of steps to make the ITP process…

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Who Is Managing the ITP Process? Part 5 of 6

By Rod Hozack, Partner at Oliver Wight Asia Pacific More than anything else, the quorum of people managing Integrated Tactical…

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How Is Change Managed In Your Business? Part 4 of 6

By Rod Hozack, Partner at Oliver Wight Asia Pacific Change in the context of Integrated Business Planning is defined as…

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What plans are managed with ITP? Part 3 of 6

By Rod Hozack, Partner at Oliver Wight Asia Pacific In the last article, we defined time fences and outlined the…

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The Foundations of Effective ITP – Time Fences. Part 2 of 6

By Rod Hozack, Partner at Oliver Wight Asia Pacific In our previous blog, we discussed what Integrated Tactical Planning is…

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What is Integrated Tactical Planning (ITP)? Part 1 of 6

By Rod Hozack, Partner at Oliver Wight Asia Pacific There has been an enormous amount of literature published about Sales…

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Scenario Planning: A Necessary Skill to Drive Better Decision Making in Int...

By Pamelyn Lindsey, CSCP, Oliver Wight Business Advisor This blog is part of a learning series on Scenario Planning. Please…

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Does Supply Chain Excellence Spoil Like Fruit Left Out on the Kitchen Counter?

In our recent survey, we received 124 responses providing us with some interesting insights on both the causes of this deterioration as well as the reasons why the level of supply chain excellence either stayed the same or got better.

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Minimizing Chaos With Demand Control and Execution

It is probably safe to say we all have lived through a bit of chaos at times, where we feel things are out of control and fires are popping up everywhere. This can apply to a number of areas. If we think about how this applies to Demand Execution, we see executives getting involved in the details.

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Too Important to Fail How to Ensure Improvement Projects Drive Sustained Success

Whether a large project across many global business segments and years, or a small quick improvement project taking less than a quarter, there is a high risk of failure. Even if successful, the results may not be sustainable.

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Integrated Business Planning Is Key to Making Annual Planning a ‘Signific...

Businesses today face ever-increasing frequency and magnitude of change in the global marketplace. Companies that still do annual planning and budgeting the traditional way are wasting time and money and will be left behind.

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The Challenges of Leadership Today

No matter how large or small, manufacturing or pharmaceutical or electronics, every business relies on a leader to chart the course and steer the ship. But if your talent is paddling a dinghy while the competition is piloting a super yacht, your business will sink in a nanosecond.

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The Perils of Decision Making: Would You Rather Be Roughly Right or Precisely Wrong?

Decision making can be one of the most frustrating aspects of being a leader, a manager, an employee, and a human being. Decisions are second guessed. That’s the genesis of the term “arm-chair quarterback.” It seems much easier to debate a decision after it has been made than to make the decision in the first place. Information requested upon which to base a decision is not believed. People fight over the information. Is the data right? Go get more data to prove whether it is right or wrong.

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Hello Finance – Are You Engaged?

We know what you’re likely to say. “Sure, we’re engaged. We ensure the books are accurate. We handle the monthly…

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Stop Arguing. Start Scenario Planning.

I hate arguments. Some people say arguing among executives spurs greater creativity when problem solving. I disagree. All too often,…

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Hey CFOs – Are You Seeing the Right Stuff?

Before you answer that, let us answer for you … “Probably not!” Our experience, both as financial practitioners and consultants,…

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How to Maintain a Competitive Advantage In a Global 2017 Marketplace

With an ever-growing number of technologies available, as well as globally mobile talent, many companies are turning to their people…

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Learn How To Avoid Crippling Supply Chain Challenges Before It’s Too Late

Recently I’ve helped supply teams that had lost the ability to plan and control their supply chain with realistic expectations, develop…

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Getting Executives Out of the Weeds to Focus on the Business / Insights Fro...

I often come across executives who are frustrated and exhausted – from firefighting, from running meeting to meeting only to…

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Product and Portfolio Management

Our Product and Portfolio Management course is designed to drive home Oliver Wight’s best practices with extensive visuals, media, simulations,…

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The Three Key Challenges That Middle-Market Businesses are Facing

All companies face difficulties when it comes to sustaining growth due to unpredictable economic conditions and competition. Middle-market companies, however,…

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Three Powerful Traits of Large, Successful, Consumer Goods Companies

It can be extremely stressful for organizations to hit their numbers, especially so for the executives who are in charge…

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Demand Management: Resources to grow your business

Just get assigned to a new role in Demand or Forecasting and not sure where to turn for professional assistance? …

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How To Leverage Millennial Traits Through IBP

Did you know that when you Google “How to improve millennial retention rates?” over one million different search results come…

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The Art of New Product Demand Planning

There is an old saying; “You don’t know what you have until it’s gone.”  However, if you never understood what…

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Welcome to Oliver Wight Americas’ new blog!

As leading educators and business coaches in disciplines such as Integrated Business Planning (Advanced S&OP), Demand Planning, and Integrated Planning…

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