CDMi - Collaborative Demand Management & intelligence

Demand Management, the foundation of Supply Chain Excellency

With unpredictable sales patterns and over 60% of companies across industries recently facing a sharp downturn in consumer demand, organizations have to make significantly more effort to manage demand volatility and protect their margins. More specifically, Sales and marketing teams need to employ the best possible demand generation levers to make the most out of their trade promotion budget to capture and retain consumer loyalty. With the increased need to free up cash from the Supply Chain, demand visibility and forecast accuracy are also recognized as key contributors to avoiding over stocks and as such reduce working capital and cash to cash cycles.

For companies who are making these financial objectives a core part of their strategy, traditional approaches to Demand Management will not be enough, today Demand Management is a cross functional process that requires close collaboration and a broader understanding of processes.

Analysts report that companies that have mastered forecasting demand and improved demand shaping practices ultimately improve the company’s bottom line through:

• 15% less inventory
• 17% stronger perfect order fulfillment
• 35% shorter cash-to-cash cycle times

Source: AMR Research Inc.

Collaborative Demand Management & intelligence - CDMi supports this objective to better understand and manage demand by providing world class forecasting and planning capabilities taking into account industry specific challenges; its advanced collaboration functionality allows for coherent process to obtain a single realistic view of demand taking into account the insight from all functions. Furthermore, the solution supports planners in managing Demand in the wider context of Supply Chain and increasingly in the context of its financial impact. CDMi provides a unique combination of Demand Management capabilities and Intelligence capabilities in one single tool, giving complete insight into the cause and effect of any demand management decisions onto the different nodes of the Supply network as well as more specific business KPIs. This translates into better visibility of the impact of forecast accuracy levels, and provides a framework for better accountability and performance management across functions.

CDMi at a glance:

A comprehensive library of forecast algorithms and predefined analyses of sales history and current trends is combined with collaboration and workflow management capabilities so that all teams drive their decision making to a joint objective. Modeling and data input is done via the Excel 2007 UI ensuring that all your teams feel at ease using the tool from day one; data in pivot tables can be edited and written back to the database making forecast consolidation a much faster task. Forecast can be assessed against financial goals to identify potential gaps and can be dynamically re-adjusted as and when required. Insights into demand trends can be then translated within the tool into shaping activities, including merchandise and assortment and decisions around promotions, as well as producing optimized replenishment plans.

A set of predefined correlating KPIs delivers clear visibility of cause and effects of daily demand management choices. Promotion Planning for example can be done with clarity of the impact on margin objectives, assortments and stock levels. Underperforming KPIs are highlighted and enable rapid resolution of issues, as well as the evaluation of possible scenarios both short term and long term for continuous improvement.

As such, CDMi really allows you to manage the current and future performance of your Supply Chain. It enables more accurate, timely and holistic decision making allowing organizations to evolve toward world-class demand management with fast implementation and ROI.