Create sales forecast

The demand forecast can be generated in SAP APO Demand Planning leveraging its toolbox of statistical forecasting techniques. Further to that, the system can incorporate unlimited causal factors (events, price changes, environmental factors etc) to generate a demand forecast using multiple linear regression. A multi-dimensional data model allows companies and marketplaces to flexibly model business partners down to the customer / store level.

Employee Roles

 Demand Planner

Document Flow

Business Documents

 Sales Order

 Forecasted Sales Data

Create order forecast

In this step, retail point-of-sales (POS) data, inventory data, causal information as well as information on planned promotions and other events are used to create an order forecast. In a subsequent step, retailers and manufacturers share their respective order forecasts in order to identify potential exceptions. This process step is supported through Demand Planning, which is used to generate a statistical demand forecast based on POS data or using causal factors based on multiple linear regression.

Employee Roles

 Demand Planner

Document Flow

Business Documents

 Forecasted Sales Data

 Sales Order

Generate order

In this process step, actual order are generated either by the retailer or the manufacturer in the frozen period of the order forecast. The order are subsequently transferred via EDI or XML data transfer, or can be shared via a private or public marketplace using xCBL documents.

Employee Roles

 Supply Chain Planner

Front end agreements

Typically does not require any system support. Document exchange could be supported through SAP Knowledge Management especially in public and private marketplace scenarios.

Employee Roles

 Demand Planner

Joint business plan

Typically does not require any system support. Source system for Business Plan could be a Category Management solution. The Output of the Joint Business Plans such as category role and tactics as well as the item management profile containing information such as order minimum and multiples, inventory policies, targeted customer service levels, lead times and order intervals, shipping rules etc will be part of the extended supply chain to be modeled in the SAP Advanced Planner and Optimizer for each product / location combination. In other words, individual item management profiles down to the SKU and store level can be modeled with the solution. This information will serve as input to the supply and distribution planning, as well as truck load building processes.

Collaborate on exception items for sales forecast

The exception criteria can be flexibly defined in both SAP APO Demand Planning and Supply Planning using both standard alert definitions and through advanced macros. Highly flexible workflow processes can be automatically triggered based on alert situations. Typically, the workflow capabilities are used to send an e-mail to the collaboration partner concerned together with a hyperlink to a web-enabled planning book. Log-on information individual to the collaboration partner ensures data security and defines the data visible and editable for each collaboration partner. The alert monitor structures exception situation according to priority for the user and provides direct access to the respective data sets. Data granularity and data views can be flexibly configured for each collaboration partner. A graphical view and alert symbols individual to cells direct the planner`s attention to exceptions. Qualitative data can be shared individual to characteristics combinations using notes management. Upon saving, the next workflow step is triggered and the data is immediately visible to the collaboration partner. Once a work item is closed, the agreed forecast can be transferred into the partner system using push or pull data transfer.

Employee Roles

 Demand Planner

Document Flow

Business Documents

 Sales Order

 Forecasted Sales Data

Document Flow

Business Documents

 Forecasted Sales Data

 Sales Order

Collaborate on exception items for order forecast

This step identifies the items where the differences in the order forecast exceed the tolerances jointly agreed upon by retailer and manufacturer as part of the front end agreement. Also see above.

Employee Roles

 Demand Planner

Document Flow

Business Documents

 Requirements

 Time & Expenses

Document Flow

Business Documents

 Requirements

 Time & Expenses

Create sales forecast

The demand forecast can be generated in SAP APO Demand Planning leveraging its toolbox of statistical forecasting techniques. Further to that, the system can incorporate unlimited causal factors (events, price changes, environmental factors etc) to generate a demand forecast using multiple linear regression. A multi-dimensional data model allows companies and marketplaces to flexibly model business partners down to the customer / store level.

Employee Roles

 Demand Planner

Document Flow

Business Documents

 Forecasted Sales Data

 Sales Order

Create order forecast

In this step, retail point-of-sales (POS) data, inventory data, causal information as well as information on planned promotions and other events are used to create an order forecast. In a subsequent step, retailers and manufacturers share their respective order forecasts in order to identify potential exceptions. This process step is supported through Demand Planning, which is used to generate a statistical demand forecast based on POS data or using causal factors based on multiple linear regression.

Employee Roles

 Demand Planner

Document Flow

Business Documents

 Sales Order

 Forecasted Sales Data

Generate order

In this process step, actual order are generated either by the retailer or the manufacturer in the frozen period of the order forecast. The order are subsequently transferred via EDI or XML data transfer, or can be shared via a private or public marketplace using xCBL documents.

Employee Roles

 Supply Chain Planner

Collaborative Planning, Forecasting & Replenishment