Let's say you're a large consumer goods manufacturer doing business in 160 different countries, selling your products to retail customers ranging from WalMart to small stores, each with its own stocking needs. The rising amount of point-of-sale and other demand data being passed to you, particularly by your largest customers, is beginning to overwhelm your people and systems. Meanwhile, the number of products and SKUs for which you must forecast and shape demand is soaring as your company attempts to satisfy the tastes of an increasingly global customer base. In fact, since 1998, your company has increased the number of SKUs it must manage by 4,000%.
OK, now imagine coming up with an accurate, actionable demand plan for each of those products in each market.
Welcome to David Mills' world.
"Complexity in the consumer products world has increased to the point where the growing amount of data to be analyzed causes demand planners to spend most of their time gathering data from each customer and getting all the inputs consolidated before they can even do the analysis," says Mills, associate director of global business planning at consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble. "Instead of demand planners focusing on resolving specific issues or shaping demand, they're dealing with the data. So we're beginning to miss opportunities."