Keeping your customers happy really shouldn’t be that hard; you just have to give them what they want (right the first time), when they want it, and in the quantity that they need.
Unfortunately, things don’t always go as planned.
Part shortages, equipment breakdowns, and staffing issues can all be reasons we can’t deliver what we promised. Not to mention, the countless other reasons our customers might not be satisfied with what we are delivering to them. I mean, good customer service is key for most any company.
Sales and operations planning (S&OP) is a business management process where leadership and executive teams meet to ensure each business function is aligned to balance supply and demand. S&OP requires cross-organizational collaboration to create detailed forecasts for predicted sales.
So, what’s the purpose of S&OP? To coordinate across business units, increase transparency, balance supply and demand, and to achieve profitability.
Here are the 6 steps to a good S&OP Process:
- Forecasting
- Demand planning
- Supply planning
- Pre-S&OP meeting
- Executive S&OP meeting
- Finalize and implement S&OP
Investing in and developing an S&OP process can be an excellent way to better align the supply and demand sides of your business; keeping every aspect of your company on the same page — allowing for a smoother functioning, more cohesive organization.
However, when we refer to a “customer”, we don’t always refer to the end or external customer; sometimes, our customer is right under our nose.
That’s right. Our customers might be the very people we work with every day! Bob in accounting. Jean in weld. Michelle in shipping. You see, our customers aren’t always the external type: the ones we invoice and they send us payment for the finished goods we provide. We also have internal customers all around us. A lot of work goes into preparing a “finished good” for our ultimate end of the line customer. Many pieces of the puzzle need to fit together before we can provide our goods, or services, that make our company what it is today. If we don’t know our internal customer, are we really providing the best product for our external customer?
Determine who your immediate internal customer is. Ask them if they have time to share a cup of coffee, or at least get together for a few minutes to chat. Often it only takes a few conversations to determine if you are being a good supplier to your customer. Am I presenting the parts to you in a way that makes your task to perform the next step easy to accomplish? Suppose I need to place the parts in a container before giving them to the next operation. Would orientating the parts a particular way make it easier for the next operation? Am I sending the reports you need in time for you to complete your portion that’s required? Is my department overloading your department with work you can’t complete? This scenario indicates a bigger problem.
Often, simple questions like these are all it takes to improve our customers experience. That leads to my next question, I wonder if Michelle takes cream and sugar?
