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White Papers

Relationships: The key to Effective Demand Planning in a Business-To-Business Environment

Poor forecasts are often symptoms of poor customer relationships. This paper deals with the role of sales account managers in developing collaborative relationships with key customers. Sales needs to represent the company to the customer and the customer to the company.

Collaboration beats guessing

As a prelude to this white paper, let me share a few fundamental principles:

  • You should not have to forecast that which is already known
  • Collaboration is better than guessing
  • Improved customer/supplier relationships with timely, trustworthy communication enable improved customer service and lower supply chain costs
  • Pareto is still alive and well in most companies i.e. 70 to 80% of a company’s volume comes from 20 to 30% of its customers
  • Focusing on the key customers goes a long way to supporting growth and financial objectives

In order to achieve growth goals and improve operating results, a company in a business-to-business (B2B) environment is constantly trying to lower its costs to meet customer price and cost reduction mandates, and to increase its competitive edge to help enable growth. One of the important capabilities a company in this position must have is a robust demand planning process.

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