Wednesday, June 12, 2019

The Upside Of Customer Demand Planning

By Angela Moore


When it comes to forecasting the interest in soon to be released products, there are several aspects. In one case, customer demand planning or CPD enables sales and marketing teams to develop forecasts based on planning as related to revenue, inventory, production and service processes.

CDP is also an important and integral part of the marketing process when it comes to the management of value chains. For, it can often be easier for managers to plan the deployment of employees and other resources necessary to take the product from the planning phase to the marketplace. As such, by using CDP, managers can use such data in a number of different ways.

While most planning systems use a top down approach when it comes to marketing and product release, CDP uses a bottom up approach. In most cases, there are only a few risks related to the number of planners required and those related to the number of products to be released.

While there are software applications and programs which can assist with CDP, some are better than others. As such, it is important that managers read reviews and select the one which is the best as related to product type. Whereas, there are also retail models in which manufacturers and retailers work in partnership to eliminate the middle man approach. In doing so, both tend to cut costs over time.

While there can often be numerous complexities and challenges when it comes to CDP, risks are minimal. While this is the case, the technology used in demand management programs for the merchant is often different than those which face distributors and manufacturers. One major difference, the demographics used to determine which products will be successful in different and diverse areas of the world.

This type of system is aimed more at matching customer logic and includes advanced practices in technology, transportation optimization, sourcing, channel management, pricing optimization, demand creation inventory and customer experience. For, unless a company can plan the results in all such areas, it can often be difficult to know whether or not a product has the potential to be successful on the open market.

New technologies are assisting with CDP in different ways. Most often with predictive analytics and forecast with relation to product delivery. CDP is also changing how companies operate on a larger scale prior to becoming involved in competition with others in the marketplace. For, a number of companies are already seeing increased efficiency while cutting costs by using new methods with regards of getting products to market.

One reason CPD can often assist companies is that productivity on any level is never an accident. To be successful, a company needs to forecast and plan ahead to assure that the inventory released to the public will meet the demand. As such, by planning ahead, some companies are now finding more success where many had failed in the past.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment