Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) Course
S&OP Exists Because Sales, Supply Chain and Finance Can All Be “Right” and the Business Can Still Make the Wrong Decision.
Sales sees upside in the market. Supply sees constrained capacity. Procurement sees long lead times. Finance sees margin and cash pressure. Product teams want a launch accelerated. Inventory already reflects last month's assumptions.
Without one structured management process, each function optimises its own view.
Sales and Operations Planning is the recurring cross-functional process that reconciles those views into one set of decisions. Current IBF training treats S&OP/IBP as an integrated process involving data, demand planning, supply planning, product portfolio/lifecycle management, financial integration, maturity and executive decision-making.
This course teaches the operating rhythm behind that integration: preparation, demand review, supply review, reconciliation, scenario analysis, executive S&OP and follow-through.
IBF S&OP & IBP 2026 · IBF Demand Planning & S&OP 2026. Evidence is contextual and not a guarantee of outcomes.
S&OP processes fail when:
- the monthly meeting is a reporting presentation rather than a decision forum
- sales owns one forecast and supply chain plans against another
- demand and supply gaps are discovered too late to create options
- finance joins only after operational decisions have already been made
- inventory is discussed as a consequence rather than an explicit trade-off
- product launches and discontinuations are not integrated into planning
- teams escalate every issue rather than manage defined tolerances
- executives attend but do not own unresolved trade-offs
- scenarios show operational volume but not financial implications
- actions are agreed but not tracked into the next cycle
- the organisation calls the process “IBP” without increasing integration or decision quality.
How This Applies Across the Markets MATSH Serves
GCC
Applications include imported supply, rapid market growth, long lead times, promotions, new-market launches and balancing inventory with customer-service expectations across regional distribution networks.
Africa
Participants address demand volatility, imported/local supply trade-offs, constrained capacity, multi-country planning and the need for proportionate S&OP processes where planning systems vary in maturity.
Asia
The course considers complex manufacturing, product proliferation, large supplier networks, high transaction volumes and frequent commercial changes requiring disciplined monthly integration.
Europe
Applications include mature planning environments, regulatory/product changes, sustainability constraints, financial integration and structured executive planning across multiple markets.
Who Should Attend
S&OP / IBP Managers
Designing, facilitating or improving the monthly process.
Demand and Supply Planning Leaders
Responsible for the primary inputs to the S&OP cycle.
Sales and Commercial Leaders
Bringing market intelligence, promotions and customer opportunities into planning.
Operations and Supply Chain Managers
Managing capacity, inventory, sourcing and service trade-offs.
Finance Business Partners
Translating volume choices into revenue, margin, cash and working-capital implications.
Product and Portfolio Teams
Managing new products, phase-outs and lifecycle decisions affecting demand and supply.
What You Will Leave With
Programme Curriculum
Why this module matters: S&OP becomes ineffective when teams copy a meeting calendar without defining what decisions the process owns. Participants learn to:
- distinguish demand planning, S&OP and IBP
- define the decisions S&OP should govern
- establish executive sponsorship
- define roles across sales, planning, operations, finance and product
- set planning horizons and time fences
- design the monthly cycle
- establish tolerances and escalation thresholds
- define one agreed dataset
- avoid duplicated planning forums
- create an S&OP charter.
Workshop: Design an S&OP calendar, governance model and decision rights.
Why this module matters: The demand review must explain not only the forecast number but the assumptions, risks and opportunities behind it. Participants learn to:
- use the consensus demand plan as the baseline
- separate base demand from upside and downside scenarios
- review forecast accuracy and bias
- challenge large overrides
- incorporate promotions and commercial events
- integrate new-product introduction
- manage phase-in and phase-out
- distinguish demand risk from committed demand
- record assumptions requiring cross-functional action
- prepare decision-relevant demand outputs for supply review.
Workshop: Run a demand/product review for a changing product portfolio.
Why this module matters: Supply review is not a production status meeting. It tests whether the organisation can support the demand plan and what trade-offs are required when it cannot. Participants learn to:
- assess capacity and material constraints
- identify supplier and lead-time exposure
- evaluate inventory implications
- model service-level consequences
- distinguish temporary and structural constraints
- create feasible supply scenarios
- assess overtime, subcontracting, sourcing and inventory options
- quantify operational trade-offs
- identify decisions that can be made within supply
- escalate unresolved demand/supply gaps appropriately.
Workshop: Build supply scenarios for a constrained planning cycle.
Why this module matters: S&OP creates enterprise value when operational choices are translated into financial and strategic consequences before the executive meeting. Participants learn to:
- reconcile demand and supply plans
- quantify revenue and margin implications
- evaluate inventory and working-capital impact
- compare scenarios consistently
- identify assumptions that drive financial differences
- integrate budget and latest forecast appropriately
- distinguish operational feasibility from financial attractiveness
- prepare options rather than one recommended number
- resolve issues before executive escalation where possible
- build a concise pre-S&OP decision pack.
Simulation: Reconcile three scenarios with different service, inventory and margin outcomes.
Why this module matters: Executive S&OP should be a short decision forum. If leaders spend the meeting debating the data, the earlier process stages have failed. Participants learn to:
- structure executive S&OP around unresolved trade-offs
- define decision ownership
- capture decisions and actions
- monitor action closure
- use forecast, inventory, service and plan-adherence KPIs
- assess process adherence without rewarding bureaucracy
- diagnose common maturity barriers
- improve cross-functional trust and data discipline
- understand what changes when S&OP evolves toward IBP
- build a phased maturity roadmap.
Capstone: Present a complete S&OP cycle and executive decision pack for a realistic business.
The Decision Pack: What a Mature S&OP Meeting Should Actually Decide
A useful S&OP cycle does not end with a reconciled spreadsheet. It ends with explicit decisions, named owners and a record of which assumptions the business is choosing to accept. Participants practise building a compact decision pack that separates facts from assumptions and makes the trade-offs visible before the executive meeting begins.
- Demand assumptions: identify the few forecast changes that materially affect capacity, inventory, cash or service rather than presenting every SKU movement as equally important.
- Supply constraints: state the constraint, when it begins, how long it may last and which customers, products or markets are exposed.
- Scenario choices: compare realistic options such as overtime, inventory build, allocation, outsourcing, delayed promotion or revised customer promise dates, including the operational and financial consequence of each.
- Decision and owner: record what has been approved, who owns execution, when the decision will be reviewed and what evidence would justify changing it.
The discipline matters because unresolved disagreement between sales, operations and finance otherwise reappears every month under a different label. A mature process keeps a decision log, tracks whether earlier assumptions were correct and uses forecast error, service, inventory and capacity outcomes to improve the next cycle. The goal is not perfect consensus. It is a repeatable mechanism for making cross-functional trade-offs before those trade-offs become urgent operational problems.
Common Questions
The Point of S&OP Is Not to Produce One More Number. It Is to Make One Better Business Decision Across Functions.
Build the operating rhythm that turns demand, supply, inventory and finance into one managed plan.
We run this course as a private programme for organisations. Bespoke dates, tailored content, group pricing.
Every course starts with a needs assessment and includes structured follow-up at three points after it ends.
Related Courses
Employee Survey Design and People Listening Course → Organisation Design and Workforce Restructuring Course → Competency Framework Design Course → Program Management for Multi-Project Environments Course →Have a question about this course?
Get in Touch