Rebuilding S&OP: The human discipline behind the data

Sales and operations planning (S&OP) has long promised alignment between commercial goals and operational execution. Yet, as several experts at this year’s CSCMP EDGE conference noted, many companies are still struggling to make it work—not because of bad data or technology, but because of missing ownership, siloed thinking, and short-term focus.

Rob Haddock, former global planning executive at Coca-Cola and now founder of Demand Chain AI, opened the session by reminding the audience that even the most advanced AI can’t fix broken fundamentals.

“A lot of times our failures are really in the basics,” Haddock said. “Technology may at times just need that information around the network or around your company.”

He described how S&OP must blend monthly strategic conversations with weekly operational “check-ins” that keep teams aligned on what’s coming in the next 21 days.

“It’s the same people,” he said, “perhaps not your senior leaders … but you are walking through what’s my open orders, what’s my on hand, am I launching any new products? Did manufacturing struggle with items?”

Turning S&OP from reaction to readiness

Jennifer Krueger, who leads planning and procurement at Light & Wonder, which manufactures gaming equipment, said her company had to fundamentally shift its mindset from short-term firefighting to forward-looking planning.

“We really had to change the thinking and the mindset and do a cultural transformation to get in place a medium-term planning mindset as well as a more strategic long-term [thinking],” Krueger said. “It’s not always for the faint of heart.”

When she arrived, Light & Wonder’s planning was driven almost entirely by quarterly revenue targets.

“It was a little bit of survival mode,” she recalled. “They were measuring forecast accuracy within the quarter … so I locked them down at what I call M minus two. You’re locking your upcoming quarter and giving me a rolling 12 months.”

Krueger added that the key to change wasn’t better models, but better incentives.

“You can’t really do this if you don’t have executive-level sponsorship,” she said. “They have to be holding their teams accountable as well to participate.”

Breaking down silos

Don Wermerskirchen, Director of Transportation Optimization at Coca-Cola, brought a perspective from the logistics side—one that’s often excluded from traditional S&OP meetings.

“It takes a lot of involvement from everybody and you really have to keep reminding the cross-functional partners involved in that,” he said. “If you don’t give me that information or if you don’t involve me in that, I’m not going to be able to save any money or reduce expense because we’re doing it at the last minute.”

Even at Coca-Cola, Wermerskirchen admitted, collaboration is a constant struggle.

“As much as we cross-collaborate and sit right next to each other in the office, a lot of people don’t know what transportation does,” he said. “Nobody’s been cross-pollinated. They want to get their part done here and just throw it over the fence to the other side.”

Still, he said, the company has learned to start small.

“We’ve seen some successes taking it in smaller chunks, breaking it down by product,” he said. “When you see the whole gamut, everybody’s just spinning.”

Ownership, not overlap

A recurring theme among the panelists was accountability. Without a defined process owner, S&OP quickly devolves into a reporting exercise. Krueger warned that too many companies delegate the process without leadership clarity.

“You should have a facilitator. You should have an S&OP owner for sure,” Krueger said. “Otherwise you’re just kind of talking in circles.”

When asked why so many organizations are still discussing the same S&OP challenges as a decade ago, Krueger offered a candid assessment:

“The concepts are pretty much the same … we don’t execute them well,” she said. “It really does come down to partnering, constant retraining, and reteaching. Technology moves fast, but adoption moves at the speed of trust.”

The art of the tradeoff

Both Krueger and Haddock stressed that S&OP isn’t about eliminating conflict, it’s about managing tradeoffs.

“It’s not about saying no to anything,” Krueger explained. “It’s really about, okay, you can do X or you can do Y. Both are viable options. Here’s what comes with each.”

Haddock agreed, noting that as long as teams stay aligned on shared goals, “you’re going to have the service and the cost that you’re looking for.” But when silos persist, he said, “you’re going to have all of this squabbling about what’s best for my bottom line, but not the company overall.”

Why it’s still hard, and why it still matters

So why, after decades of frameworks and software, does S&OP remain a challenge? Haddock pointed to leadership turnover, lack of middle management champions, and misaligned KPIs.

“If you lose the big person and you don’t have anybody in the middle, in six months it’ll die,” he said. “So you need C-suite support, you need a change agent, and you need KPIs.”

Despite the frustrations, he said, the companies that persist see tangible payoffs.

“S&OP resiliency is a competitive advantage,” Haddock concluded. “If you’re not doing it, chances are your competition is and they’ll be putting things in the marketplace at lower cost and better service.”

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