ISCOM/305 Week 5 discussion question 1

According to our text, Sales and Operating Planning is a process which helps a company plan to meet its demand at a certain time and for a specific amount of time (Russel & Taylor, 2011). A company may forecast sales and demands and implement strategies to compensate the workload before this time period. This includes the labor hours for employees, temporarily hire new employees, stock up a certain amount of inventory, etc. One example of when a company may implement this process is when it reaches November. The Black Friday Sales. Usually at this time of year, almost every item goes on sale and companies are jam packed with customers. Workers are needed more than usual during this time of year because of this. Some, if not most companies are open even overnight. To meet with customer demand and to provide decent service during this time, the company implements the S&OP process. If this is not planned correctly, then the company could lose control over sales and not meet satisfactory customer service. During this time, it is important for the company to have decent availability of products to make sure that needs are met. There are many other reasons why a company implements the S&OP process. Would anyone like to share? And what specific strategies do companies use to meet demands?