Business Objective

Our client’s objective was to deliver a solution that could ultimately help support a process to generate a Consensus Demand Forecast that included:

• A statistically generated baseline Sell Thru Forecast using Retailer Point of Sale (POS) data that is owned and changed by the Sales Managers
• A calculated Sell In Forecast based on the Sell Thru Forecast, On Hand Inventory, and Weeks of Supply goals
• A statistically generated baseline Shipment Forecast using historical sales data from Oracle that is owned and managed by the Demand Planners
• A Consensus Demand Plan established through a collaborative process between Sales Managers and Demand Planners, that becomes the basis of a plan for both Finance (without a buffer) and Supply Chain/Operations (with a buffer).

Solution Offered By TekLink:

TekLink provided a project team that partnered with our client to deliver the following using Anaplan’s cloud-based planning and performance management platform:

Sales (POS) Forecast Model

• Configured the Anaplan Statistical Algorithms to produce a ‘Best Fit’ forecasting model default
• Created KPIs, input templates, and reports to support the process
• Created a Dependent Sell-In forecast for the North American Sales Team, which feeds both the Demand Planning and S&OP processes
• Dependent Shipment Forecast is updated automatically with any change in the POS forecast and/or Weeks of Supply (WOS) target.

• EDW houses 80% of POS data and is automatically loaded using SnapLogic API, and the remaining 20% is loaded through flat files provided by client’s customers
• Forecast based on SKU and Account/Customer
• Sales Manager’s manage levers like Promotions, POS, WOS, and seasonality inputs to generate the best forecast
• Solution allows Sales Managers to leverage On-Hand Retailer Inventory and collaborate with the customer on a Weeks Of Supply (WOS) target to produce a ‘dependent’ Sell In (Shipment) forecast

Demand Planning (Sell-In) Forecast and Consensus Model

• Brought together both versions of the Sell-In Shipment forecasts for collaboration in the monthly Consensus Review Meeting
• Created KPI’s, input templates, and reports to support the process
• Historical Oracle Sales Data in the EDW is loaded using SnapLogic API
• North American Demand Planner models the Sell-In Shipment forecast using levers like promotions, seasonality, spikes, trends, and many others.
• Statistically generated forecast is an input, which the Demand Planner uses as intelligence to adjust the go-in consensus forecast
• System allows the Demand Planner to produce a statistically based Sell-In (Shipment) forecast by SKU and Account

Hyperion Data Loads and Global Reporting

• Brought both versions of the Sell-In Shipment forecasts together for collaboration in the monthly Consensus Review Meeting
• Changes resulting from the collaboration meeting are made to the Demand Planner Forecast and the Sales Manager’s inputs are taken into consideration
• Created KPI’s and reports to support the process
• Created a Consensus forecast with and without a buffer for distribution to Operations and Finance, respectively.
• Consensus Analysis reports created to facilitate this collaboration process

Outcomes and Benefits:

• It is the First-ever solution for forecasting Point of Sale (POS) and Sell-In Demand
• The forecast on a rolling 18-month horizon provides deeper insights into the future outcomes and better decision making
• The highly automated solution shifts the business users time from being data stewards to data analysts
• Automation, real-time data aggregation/consolidation, and improvement in overall data accuracy has produced time savings and a more efficient process
• The solution allows Sales Managers, Demand Planners, and Consensus Team to collaborate and align on a Consensus Sell-In Forecast
• It generates a statistical forecast using historical POS data and Seasonal Algorithms as the basis and the starting point for the Sell-Thru Forecast
• The solution has become the basis for constructing both a Sell-Thru Forecast by Sales Managers and a Sell-In Forecast by Demand Planners and Sales ManagersOver time, the client believes the solution will improve forecast accuracy, which was a key objective of the project.