Integrated Business Planning (IBP)

From 2020 onwards, supply chains experienced the effects of considerable disruption from the Covid-19 pandemic in various ways. After the collapse of several markets, manufacturing and retail see a strong increase in demand in 2020 and 2021 (Manufacturing industry (cbs.co.uk)) (Retail trade: record growth in 2020, contraction in December (cbs.co.uk)). At the same time, there are supply shortages due to closed ports in the East, the Suez Canal blockade and general container shortages. This leads to complex planning challenges where integral decision-making is desired based on financial ratios. This requires an integrated approach to your organisation. Integrated Business Planning is a method that helps your company make proactive strategic and tactical choices in your supply chain. The world is changing rapidly and therefore innovation, growth and improvement are constantly needed. The increasingly demanding and fluctuating market requires more and specific insights, based on data.

This integrated approach combined with a more stable supply chain helps your company minimise fluctuation in supply, achieve better alignment between strategic, operational and financial goals and create transparency within your business. It provides medium-term and long-term insight, allowing early identification of bottlenecks and early adjustment of work processes. In this way, Integrated Business Planning helps you proactively make objective and responsible decisions. Decisions that help increase your delivery reliability by ensuring that the right products arrive at the right place at the right time.

We make a business case for Integrated Business Planning on the one hand by achieving margin optimisation, because it is easier to estimate which products will generate better margins and respond to them at an early stage. On the other hand, better supply planning results in higher efficiency, reducing transport costs, inventory costs and warehouse costs, among other things. The above invoices therefore contribute to increasing your customer service levels. At the same time: an investment is required for the necessary tooling and working with this tooling requires different competences from your staff. This investment generally pays for itself through the savings described above. Supply Value is a specialist in network optimisation. Our Integrated Business Planning knowledge series zooms in on various aspects of Integrated Business Planning:

• Introduction video: Why Integrated Business Planning?
• Case study Freudenberg: What is Integrated Business Planning?
• Planning & Scheduling: How do you optimise your production planning and material flow?
• Inventory, Transport & Location: Where do you place your customer order release point and how do you optimise stock levels for different stock locations?
• Human Factors in IBP: How do you develop the right competencies in the right people in your organisation and how do you create support in your management team?