Sales and Operations Planning Case Study

i2 Helps to Create a Superior Global S&OP Process at a Major Automotive Company

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S&OP Automotive Case Study

One of the key stakeholders summed up the benefits by saying, “For the first time in our history, our executives are able to make real-time decisions, based on real-time data.”

With a more than 100-year history, this company is one of the largest global automotive companies. It has manufacturing, engineering, marketing and sales operations distributed across the world. The company has achieved a true “make anywhere-source anywhere-sell anywhere” model.

The Challenge

Establish a synchronized global sales and operations management process
Balance global demand with global supply
Allocate supply based on margin
Make adjustments based on changing business conditions.
Align global sales and operations planning with regional frequency and market dynamics.

i2's Contribution

i2 helped this automotive company define a global process for demand and supply balancing and put in place a managed shared service model enabled by i2 Sales and Operations Management (S&OM). This solution enabled the company to perform the information consolidation necessary for an effective global S&OM process. What once took weeks to execute is now being done in a matter of days, allowing planners and stakeholders to focus on value-generating decisions. This foundational capability has enabled the company to further advance its S&OM efforts by implementing scenario analysis and demand-shaping capabilities.

About i2 Sales and Operations Management

i2 Sales and Operations Management provides a scalable process and technology foundation for complete information visibility, process repeatability, “what-if” analytics, and rapid decision making. Key capabilities enabled by i2 S&OM include:

Process Orchestration: Set up a repeatable sales and operations management process that is executed based on alerts and exceptions
Rapid Impact Analysis: Assess the impact of demand and supply decisions on revenue and margins and use pre-defined playbooks for exception resolutions
Corporate Accountability: Use live dashboards with audit trail capability for tracking plan vs. actual performance on quantitative and qualitative corporate data
Dynamic Plan Consolidation: Consolidate point-of-sale, inventory, forecast, supply, product mix and financial data across regions and product lines
Corporate Adoption: Employ easy-to-use interface, enabling low cost of ownership by leveraging current desktop office productivity tools and solutions

Measurable benefits of i2 S&OM typically include shorter cash-to-cash cycle, lower working capital requirements, reduced expediting and logistics costs, better forecast accuracy and more profitable production scheduling. From a qualitative standpoint, the benefits of implementing i2 S&OM include increased supply chain visibility, improved customer service, and a better balance among demand, capacity, and profitability across the enterprise. These factors add up to significant improvements in overall business performance.