What is Integrated Business Planning (IBP)?
Led by your executive team, Integrated Business Planning (IBP) is a common-sense process designed for effective decision-making. It allows senior management to plan and manage your entire organization over a 24-36 month horizon, aligning strategic and tactical plans each month, and allocating critical resources, people, equipment, inventory, materials, time, and money; to satisfy your customers in the most profitable way.
Integrated Business Planning represents the evolution of Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) from the supply and demand balancing process developed in the early 1980s. Today it is a process that drives the alignment of all functions across an organization, models and creates readiness for alternate outcomes, drives deployment of strategy, and enhances collaboration across supply chains.
Integrated Business Model
What is the difference between S&OP and IBP?
There are many differences between Sales & Operations Planning and Integrated Business Planning, but firstly it’s important to note that IBP is not a supply chain process; it has a much broader reach. IBP is the process that connects your strategy and business plan to ensure both are delivered.
The purpose of IBP is not to drive a better forecast with which supply chain can plan. It is the process that brings focus to the deployment of your business strategy and provides a framework for effective decision-making to drive growth.
It's also much more than just a monthly meeting. IBP is a company framework to surface and solve problems and continually re-optimize plans as circumstances change. IBP enables businesses to create an aligned, cross-functional plan for the future, based upon key assumptions. These assumptions, documented and updated each month, are based on insights.
Read our white paper to learn more about what sets Integrated Business Planning apart from Sales & Operations Planning.
Looking for help in IBP software?
We often work with clients who have launched an IT implementation but have not taken their people on the change journey with them. Ensuring people, process, and tool alignment is pivotal to achieving your full business potential and avoiding people reverting back to old ways of working.
Our strategic alliances are leading experts in unlocking increased responsiveness through data-driven strategic designs using IBP software.
Working with our alliances we help clients to create an IBP roadmap – a clear view of how the process will be implemented including the role of people and tools. We also engage with executive teams to guide organizations in the design and implementation of required processes and behaviors to deliver business performance and strategic ambition.
How Mature is Your Organization's True Level of Maturity in IBP?
Before embarking on any performance improvement program, it is imperative to identify your organization's true level of maturity. The Oliver Wight Maturity Model characterizes an organization as being in one of four key phases of maturity: Co-ordination, Business Process Control, Automation, or Integration. Assess your business maturity in Integrated Business Planning using our free online self-assessment tool.
Assess Your Business Maturity