Enterprise Demand Management: Improving Corporate Agility And Delivering Value In A Highly Competitive Environment
Enterprise demand management has come to the forefront of the corporate agenda. Improving the accuracy and timeliness of corporate planning increases revenue predictability and improves operating margins is the key to survival in a highly competitive global economy — and, is a prerequisite to strategic initiatives such as outsourcing, inventory reduction, lean manufacturing, postponement planning, vendor managed inventory, shortened product lifecycles, and aggressive delivery promising.
Furthermore, a growing number of businesses now recognize that not all resources can be managed on a "just-in-time" basis — Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Supply Chain Management (SCM) and other operational system efficiencies still depend on the quality of planning data fed to them.
Effective enterprise demand management requires much more than merely selecting the optimal set of statistical forecasting techniques and creating a demand plan. It also involves the development of a cross-departmental Sales & Operations Planning process and trans-organizational collaborative management processes that leverage enterprise-wide data, qualitative knowledge and performance feedback. More specifically, accurate and timely projections require that cutting-edge, quantitative/statistical techniques be combined with emerging technologies that systematically integrate, manage and share the wealth of data and intellectual capital that exists throughout organizations and across trading partners and suppliers. Only then will strategic planning and decision-making activities be optimized.
Herein lies the challenge.