For CPG companies, one of the most opportune areas to achieve ROI from an IT initiative is by improving the performance of trade promotion spending through promotion modeling analytics. ROI can be achieved by improving the effectiveness of trade promotions and synchronizing trade promotions with supply chain operations. These two areas are ripe with opportunity because of huge dollars spent on trade promotions and the lack of systems addressing effectiveness and synchronization.

 Value Chain Planning

From a supply chain planning perspective, few industries are as challenging as Consumer Electronics. Consumer Electronics products have very short life cycles, must be delivered to market on-time or ahead-of-schedule to make money, are subject to cut-throat pricing and promotions, and must have a "cool" factor. While supply chain planning cannot help with the cool factor, it plays a big part in making sure manufacturers can get these products to the right place in the right quantities while the products are still cool.

From a supply chain planning perspective, few industries are as challenging as Consumer Electronics. Consumer Electronics products have very short life cycles, must be delivered to market on-time or ahead-of-schedule to make money, are subject to cut-throat pricing and promotions, and must have a "cool" factor. While supply chain planning cannot help with the cool factor, it plays a big part in making sure manufacturers can get these products to the right place in the right quantities while the products are still cool.

It is here and it will change the way you think about advanced planning -- Oracle Rapid Planning.

At Oracle, we have seen the interest in sales and operations planning continue to grow. The tough economy has caused many to take a very critical look at their planning processes and many companies have not liked what they have found. Too often, "formal" planning systems are being supplemented with spreadsheets such that the company does not have a single operating plan. These companies are turning to Oracle for help improving their sales and operations planning process and supporting systems, including many that are not currently running an Oracle ERP application.

Here are the VCP related sessions at Open World. We will also be at the Demogrounds in Moscone South (S-011, S-012, S-013 and S-075) to answer your questions.
Hope to see some of you there.

The Gartner Group defines the Integrated Business Planning as the "reconciliation process that closes the gap between [business] strategy and operations." In most corporations, even those with good ERP implementations, planning is done at the department level and often depends on emails and spreadsheets to bridge these departmental planning systems. This leads to disconnects and gaps across different departments. Finance sets revenue and profit goals with little validation from Manufacturing that the company has the resources, material, capacity, or demand to reach these goals.

Configure-to-order (CTO) products, also known as modular, configurable, or assemble-to-order (ATO) products are products that can be configured to specific customer requirements by selecting and assembling modules or options. For example, a specific computer configuration is created by selecting from options such as hard drives, DVD drives, monitors, etc. In CTO environment, each sale is a combination of multiple options and predicting this variable mix of options adds significant complexity to demand management process.

The other day my refrigerator went kaput with the regular symptoms - food smelling... There were two interesting occurences:

Information-driven Value Chain Planning is now available for APS Release 11.5.10 customers. This exciting new capability provided by the Advanced Planning Command Center Release 12.1.1 which has been back ported to operate against APS Release 11.5.10 without having to upgrade the full APS Suite to Release 12.1. (Customers who want to upgrade their APS instance to Release 12.1 can also run this against an E-Business Suite 11.5.10 release – this capability has been available for almost a year.)

Oracle's Value Chain Planning suite has been integrated to JD Edwards EnterpriseOne ERP application using an AIA Product Integration Pack (PIP). This integration will be available in second half of 2009. The Value Chain Planning suite, which recently received the highest rating in Gartner's Supply Chain Planning Process Automation MarketScope report, will further extend the robust supply chain planning capabilities currently available for JD Edwards EnterpriseOne.

Oracle Rapid Planning, part of the company's Value Chain Planning suite, is to offer real-time, event-driven simulation. Nadeem Syed, Oracle's group vice president for value chain planning, says it will enable manufacturers to gain rapid, predictive and actionable insight into supply chain planning decisions.

Syed explains that the new software will combine fast, constraint-based planning with a web services and open, standards-based architecture, as well as a superior user interface that allows easy manipulation of data and quick comparisons of alternative plans.

Ever stop to think about the miles traveled by the products that your company produces from the point at which the first component is manufactured until the completed product reaches the final customer? Products and the components inside often accumulate thousands of miles before they reach the customers. Every single one of these miles adds to a product’s carbon footprint. While bottled water from Fiji and French Alps has taken a big public relations hit lately, they are not the only products guilty of seemingly excessive travel.

Companies around the world say they are using Oracle Value Chain Planning applications to gain competitive advantage by predicting and shaping demand to maximise revenues. Users include Alkan, ArvinMeritor, Auto Windscreens, C&S Wholesale, Hatfield Quality Meats, Hormel, JDSU, Oxiteno and Spühl – and all talk of lowering operating costs and increasing performance.

This Bloomberg article reports
"The oil survey has correctly predicted the direction of futures 50 percent of the time since its start in April 2004"

Here is a listing of events and other happenings at Open world that are relevant to value chain planning. Hope to see some of you there!

To those of you familiar with the Strategic Network Optimization application it will come as no surprise that SNO is able to help in managing green house gas emissions. In fact, the flexibility of the application can assist in balancing a wide array of green supply chain objectives.

Advances in supply chain planning over the last couple of decades have provided companies with the ability to shape not only demand, but also supply. By leveraging solutions in strategic planning, inventory optimization, demand management and optimized planning and scheduling, today’s leading businesses are able to improve profitability and exploit competitive advantages.

Posting on behalf of John Bermudez, Senior Director, Supply Chain Planning Product Strategy

Welcome to the Oracle Advanced Planning Blog. It is our goal to stimulate many spirited discussions on planning best practices, tips and techniques for using Oracle Advanced Planning applications and customer success stories. Bloggers will come from the Oracle’s extended global Advanced Planning team and we welcome commentary from our SIGs, customers and partners.