Pittsburgh—May 1, 2012—Supply chain management consulting firm Plan4Demand worked with Crown Imports to revamp the beer provider’s Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) process to gain visibility into long-term financial and operational plans. The new S&OP process enables Crown to review the supply chain plan through a financial lens to identify gaps or blind spots in plans when issues are still actionable.
“Crown recognized that blind spots or holes in data points were holding them back from their true earning potential,” said Lisa Kustra, Chief Executive Officer, Plan4Demand. “Blind spots or gaps left in the planning process impact the ability to make critical business decisions. With the proper tools and processes in place, you have actionable information in time to take advantage of opportunities or adjust plans to recover from shortfalls.”
Crown was planning 90 days out, and if there were issues or shortfalls, they were often masked in the future. Now Crown works 24-months out with in-depth data shared across business units providing early visibility into emerging risks and opportunities.
“We were working with multiple forecasts and focusing on the short-term horizon which leads to reactive solutions,” explained Jessie Luchsinger, Demand Planning and S&OP Lead, Crown Imports. “Crown now has forecast alignment 24-months out to enable the team to proactively pursue strategic solutions to run the business. Plan4Demand helped us drive visibility and accountability around our forecasting and prediction capabilities. We can see emerging trends sooner than we would have with our former S&OP process. The ROI for this project was immediate.”
