Integrated Business Planning

Blueshift's speciality is Integrated Business Planning

Integrated Business Planning is the set of processes, practices and technologies used to unite a company on a Consensus Business Plan.  A company conducting true IBP will have a single consensus forecast across all functions, which is often referred to as a “one number forecast”.  The Consensus Business Plan enables senior management to make informed decisions tactically and operationally, driving profitability and revenue and improving customer relationships.

Although our focus is largely consumer goods companies, the Blueshift’s ONE Solution was built with all business categories in mind.

Besides having one strategy driving the business, other benefits include: improved spend optimization and efficiency, improved stock turns and inventory reductions, increased revenue growth and improved customer relationships.

Absolutely. We work with clients who use APO and they work well together – Blueshift’s ONE Solution is used for an unconstrained customer forecast which is then interfaced to APO for supply planning.

The Blueshift ONE solution incorporates best-in-class TPM, TPO, demand planning, customer planning and budgeting solutions.

All of Blueshift’s customers enjoy platinum service levels: underpinned by proactive ongoing consulting and training, data analysis, interface monitoring and upgrade installations – this all contributes to strong partnerships.

GOAL

The goal of IBP is to have a single set of numbers driving the business (the Consensus Business Plan), and to have complete buy-in from all business functions. This will inform strategic decision making, supply planning, budgeting and commercial planning.

BENEFITS

Companies implementing IBP successfully always drive tangible bottom line gains within the first year. The primary benefit comes from visibility and the capability to make proactive strategic decisions.

OWNERSHIP

Successful IBP within an organisation is driven from the top down. Senior management understand it both strategically and operationally and drive the process and accountability throughout the business on an ongoing basis.

THE PROCESS

Senior management set the strategic direction for the business, taking the dynamic Consensus Business Plan as the key input.

The Category team conduct analysis and provide insights to the sales and marketing teams.  For example, they create a optimized promotion “menu” for the sales team to select from when budgeting or planning with customers.

A key input for promotional planning and ROI analysis is the baseline forecast, generated by the demand team.  Taking this, combined with category intelligence and scenario planning technology, the sales and marketing teams build and manage complex and optimized programs.

Taking the promotional plan as incremental from the sales team, the demand team collaboratively manage a total unconstrained customer forecast.

Supply Planning provide capacity constraints as input to S&OP and use the Consensus Business Plan for inventory control, supply and production planning.

Taking the promotional program managed by the sales team, claims and accruals are overseen by the commercial team.

IBP Implementation Technology

Successful IBP implementations include technology that supports the end to end process.  Systems that support IBP, such as Blueshift’s ONE Solution, have the following features:

  • Enterprise-grade Demand Planning including the capability to hold and interact with a Consensus Business Plan (i.e. including the commercial forecast);
  • Demand capabilities to produce an accurate baseline-plus-incremental type forecast, thereby minimizing positive bias;
  • Promotion Planning, acting as the single entry point and subsequently integrating with Demand Planning, generating accruals and automated matching of claims;
  • Tight financial integration with a company’s ERP system including accruals, claims and pricing conditions;
  • Capability to interface all master data and transaction data from the ERP system including time and customer-sensitive pricing and cost pricing;
  • Capability to interface external data from scan and other providers;
  • Real time scenario planning for the purpose of modelling business outcomes;
  • Interface capability to output the Consensus Business Plan to a company’s Enterprise Data Warehouse, Supply Planning system and Field system.

Best practice IBP is where users interact with data they have control over (plans, promotions, mechanics, scenarios)  without having to worry about master data (pricing, cost pricing, history).  Best practice IBP is also characterized by a system that is single input only, where users are responsible for keying their information once and interfaces and reports take care of the rest.

OUR PROCESS

This is the process we follow to ensure our customers have a smooth IBP implementation.

Prelim Business Case

Blueshift engage to understand your business at a high level and establish a simple estimated ROI.

Due Diligence

System and process demonstration and detailed metric analysis to prove ROI.

Implementation

Blueprinting, prototyping, interface development, data validation, UAT, training and Go-live.

Support

ELS and pro-active support including Blueshift’s ongoing IBP Excellence Program.

Enquire about a solution for Integrated Business Planning