Solution Brief
Predict and plan demand
Automate and accelerate demand insights across your supply chain.
The issue
Organizations that are heavily dependent on their supply chains face heightened pressure to enhance demand-sensing and planning processes in an increasingly unpredictable global environment. Achieving forecast accuracy is vital for maintaining profitability while effectively balancing demand and inventory levels. It’s also critical to avoid over- and under-stocking situations. By consistently delivering improved on-hand service levels, companies can strengthen their top and bottom lines.
The challenge
Siloed planning system design
To eliminate these silos, organizations need an intelligent business process built with collaboration at the heart of the solution. SAS provides collaboration and process management features that are intuitive and aligned with common integrated business processes across a variety of industries (consumer goods, retail, manufacturing, etc.).
Basic planning systems or spreadsheets don’t easily enable data manipulation or viewing
Executives can’t view corporate roll-ups from different vantage points, making strategic planning across the enterprise difficult. SAS offers preconfigured forecasting and demand planning. Powerful analytics for demand sensing and shaping, forecasting and price elasticity estimation are embedded to support what-if analyses.
Lack of automated processes
Manual, low-productivity tasks reduce planners’ efficiency and ability to work strategically to improve results. Our preconfigured analytical forecasting models support what-if analyses that can be automated to free up time while reducing the need for data scientists, which unlocks revenue and cost control opportunities.
Short product life cycles and lack of visibility into consumption data
As a result, supply is misaligned and sell-through rates are low. Using SAS®, organizations get scalable product forecasting that models demand based on market signals such as promotion data, POS sales data, Google Trends and economic indicators. This allows greater accuracy than simple historical time-series predictions.
(Execute ongoing accuracy improvements that seed higher repeatable performance throughout the value chain; Increase forecast accuracy by an estimated 10% to 30%*; Enhance the speed and accuracy of demand planning with continuously improving algorithms)
*Results realized by a large European retailer using SAS
Our approach
SAS helps companies:
Realize value quickly
SAS provides hyper-accurate forecasts deployed in your cloud or as a service on ours. Whichever path you choose, your solution will be up and running in weeks, not months.
Drive revenue and margin gains with improved service levels
Improved visibility of consumer demand volatility supports reduced stock-outs by balancing inventory levels while reducing safety stock.
Improve planning automation, efficiency and granularity
Our patented capabilities guide planners to manage by exception, which reduces human error and unproductive planning efforts.
Get demand-driven decisioning
Integrated worksheet analytics allows your staff to conduct ad hoc analysis, visually explore data, and develop reports and dashboards to share insights through web and mobile devices.
Enhance planning collaboration
The ability to share strategic plans across the organization guides business users in agile, collaborative decision making.
- Improve flexibility and agility in planning scenarios, adjustments and iterations.
- Increase visibility, transparency and forecast explainability by capturing and adjusting for key drivers of demand.
- Identify vulnerabilities in the forecast and risks to the plan by using what-if scenario planning and increasing the time available for forecast value-added analysis.
Predict and plan consumer demand with confidence
Using SAS for demand planning, Calimax transformed its forecasting and inventory management approach. The results were outstanding. SAS helped Calimax achieve precise forecasts, ensuring its stores were stocked with fresh, high-quality produce and goods.
SAS difference
Advantages of SAS® for demand planning
Using SAS, organizations can quickly implement cloud-based demand planning to analyze customer demand, collaborate across the organization to develop strategic plans and optimize their supply chain to account for changing demand and inventory conditions. With the next-generation SAS Intelligent Planning solution, organizations can automate and accelerate demand planning insights across their supply chain.
Flexible
- One size does not fit all
- Platform for continuous improvement
- Dual planning interfaces with configurable views
Consistent
- Repeatable process across markets
- Common planning workflows
- Tighter connections to stat forecasting
Transparent
- Explainable forecasts
- Track planning assumptions; automated audit trail
- Forecast adoption and trust
Efficient
- Scenario planning
- Forecast value add, assisted demand planning
- Automate manual tasks, reporting
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Supply chain dashboard excess inventory exception report
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Rolling 52-week sales history report