When the sales department wimps out on planning
It never ceases to amaze me when I hear from customers that the sales department provides no input, neither for sales planning nor for the S&OP process. This may work for stable, established products. Statistical or AI-based forecasts do a very good job there. But for new articles, projects or planned advertising campaigns, input from the market is crucial. And this is provided by the sales department, or at least it should be.
Of course, not every salesperson likes to work with numbers. Especially not on a unit basis or at item level. And woe betide you if your sales planning deviates from your business plan! Not to mention the uncertainty surrounding new products. These are all valid arguments. I have often discussed them myself with the sales department, sometimes with success, sometimes without.
But what does it say about an organization if the sales department simply gets away with staying out of the planning process?
Planning is never exact. But that is precisely why it is important, especially when there is a high degree of uncertainty. This is precisely when sales and the supply chain must work together to paint as realistic a picture of demand as possible. Supported by Controlling, if necessary. Because if requirements from planned sales campaigns do not arrive in production, demand cannot be converted into sales. And that ultimately helps no one.
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The problem is: without clear leadership, nothing will change. Sales and Operations must agree that they want to plan together. And then someone is needed to get the ball rolling – usually the sales manager. Not an easy task, but a necessary one.
It is important to explain to the sales team why their figures are needed – and that it is okay to be wrong. The business plan may have been approved months earlier and is based on assumptions that have long since become outdated due to changes in the market. Sales planning, on the other hand, is dynamic. It is adjusted on a monthly basis and is operationally relevant.
Both are justified: The business plan is a stable management tool for the company as a whole. Sales planning is the operational tool for SCM and production to control the flow of goods. Anyone who treats the two in the same way or mixes them up provokes conflicts. It is important to consciously manage the differences.
Successfully bringing sales on board therefore requires a cultural change, which in turn requires appropriate leadership. At the same time, it is important to create or adapt processes that are as lean and effective as possible, ideally supported by easy-to-use systems, so that no unnecessary hurdles are placed in the way of joint collaboration.
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Of course, what reads so logically here is rarely easy in practice. But anyone who has managed it and suddenly experiences better delivery readiness, fewer stock-outs and more trust between sales and SCM knows that the effort is worth it.
