supply chain excellence and S&OP e-book cover

Attaining supply chain excellence may mean sailing into unchartered waters.

To support you on your journey to business growth, our experts have put together a practical Sales & Operations Planning roadmap. In this infographic, we reveal how S&OP can help you:

Define a winning strategy
Build a robust tactical plan
Execute your plan to keep your goals on track

Download the infographic now

What can Christopher Columbus teach us about S&OP?

On his quest to discover America, Christopher Columbus had to do lots of strategic planning to achieve supply chain excellence.
He’d have to charter the way, think about supplies and put together the right crew.

Columbus would then have to create a more detailed plan on how to fulfil this strategy. Where would he sail to first? Where could he restock? What were his contingency plans? He’d have packed the ship, double checked the cheese and wine rations and set off.

Planning for the unexpected

This is all well & good. But en route, the explorer ran into some troubled water. For example, it’s widely noted he landed in the Caribbean a few times. There is even some doubt over whether or not he actually reached America at all.

This is what we call ‘managing the plan’. How could he steer back on course? How could he align to the original plan? Maybe his charts were wrong? Or the man in charge had drunk too much rum? We’ll never know.

Perhaps if his team had known of S&OE (Sales and Operations Execution), his claim on American soil might be substantiated to this day!

Delivering your growth objective through supply chain excellence

Sure, sailing to America was an ambitious objective. But your business growth goals are also no mean feat!

To move your business forward, you need a solid strategy, a tactical plan and the ability to put this plan into action. But much like Christopher Columbus, you will encounter unexpected challenges.

There may be some aspects where the reality falls short of expectation.

But if you want to close the gap between your ideal plans and real results, keep reading. We’ve got something that can help!