Integrated Business Planning

For integrating functional plans, deploying business strategy, and driving business management

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.

Oliver Wight Integrated Business Planning

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

How you can benefit from Integrated Business Planning

Early identification of gaps in the business plan and strategy deployment, creating time to close them

An integrated view of performance and projection of your business over a 24-36 month horizon

Alignment of functional operating plans and financial projections with ‘one set of numbers’

Application of scenario planning and modelling to areas of your business where there may be uncertainty or impact

Increased responsiveness to uncertainties and unplanned events to minimize negative impacts and seize opportunities

Creation of transparency and clear accountability across the business/organization

Simplification of the budgeting or annual planning process

Integration of strategy deployment with operational plans

Increased employee engagement and efficiency

Growth in revenue

Reduced costs

Improved customer service

Reduced inventory

Visibility of planned product changes, future demand from sales and marketing, supply chain performance, planned supply chain capability and flexibility, plus bottom-up plans and the actions and decisions required to deliver ‘best for business' outcomes

You should consider Integrated Business Planning for your business if:

You are constantly in ‘fire-fighting’ mode
You have a misaligned management team
You are continually missing the financial plan
You are experiencing rapid growth and can no longer manage effectively using an informal process
Your budgeting process is ‘painful’
You are struggling to get on top of service issues
You cannot keep up with growth in demand
You have excessive inventory
You are experiencing excessive rework and cost
Departments or sites are working in silos
There is no ‘single source of truth’ or ‘single set of numbers’ to run the business
You feel like you never have time to look at the strategy
There is poor deployment and execution of the strategic plan
You have poor employee engagement
You feel like you are not getting a return on the effort put into your existing S&OP/IBP process

How we can help

A diagnostic assessment of your current S&OP or IBP process, including its effectiveness and identifying any performance issues

Transfer of our knowledge to your people so they can create and manage an effective Integrated Business Planning process

Change management – plan, monitor, and support the implementation of change and its impact on your people

Facilitate the design of an IBP process to best fit your organization and its needs

Scoping of an action plan to address issues and take advantage of the opportunities identified, including resourcing, timelines, and performance improvement expectations

Coach IBP process users as you introduce the new ways of working

Assess and validate that your IBP process has achieved a Class A level of effectiveness – firmly embedded as the ‘way you do things’ and delivering the benefits you wanted

“Integrated Business Planning is a cutting edge process which creates cross-functional alignment and enables businesses to re-focus to meet the ever-changing environment. IBP generates readiness for alternative outcomes, enhances collaboration, and ultimately drives deployment of strategy in an uncertain world.

The chosen process of some of the world’s most progressive and best-known organizations, IBP is a common-sense process that maximizes profit and enables leaders to manage risk with confidence.”

– Anne Marie Kilkenny, Oliver Wight Partner.

Integrated Business Planning resources to help you improve

Courses

White papers & case studies

Books

Videos & webinars

Get in touch

Integrated Business Planning – Introduction, Overview, and Current Best Practice

More information +

Integrated Business Planning

Latest white papers & case studies

Controlling your future in an uncertain world

In this paper, we outline 10 keys to effective assumption management.

Five key factors to speed up your successful IBP journey: Intelligent solutions meet your integrated process.

In this paper, we outline five key steps to enabling a more integrated, sophisticated, and cost-effective IBP integration.

Gehen Sie Fake News nicht auf den Leim.

Überall auf der Welt lässt sich zurzeit ein besorgniserregender Trend beobachten: Kunden wird Integrated Business Planning (IBP) verkauft, geliefert aber wird einfaches, traditionelles S&OP unter falschem Etikett.

Transformer son S&OP en IBP

Beaucoup d'entreprises ne retirent pas tous les bénéfices potentiels de leur processus S & OP, car ce dernier n’a pas évolué au fil des ans et reste un simple équilibrage demande / supply. Oliver Wight a fait évolué le processus vers la Planification Inté

Navigating Uncertainty: Is Your IBP Process Fit for the Future?

Planning future performance is an integral part of most companies’ operations today – longer-term strategic planning, medium-term business planning, and annual operating planning and budgeting.

Scenario Planning Trigger Points – Creating an Integrated Response to Scenarios

Scenario Planning is crucial to the response and recovery to changes in our environment. This has always been true and is talked about everywhere in business planning today.

Getting the Most From Integrated Business Planning

This series of thought leadership articles has been carefully selected to help you assess the value of your Integrated Business Planning (IBP) process.

From Disorder to Agility

Read expert views from Oliver Wight and SAP and discover how to turn business disruptions into opportunities, thrive in difficult circumstances, and become a market disruptor yourself.

Integrated Business Planning for High Performance Businesses

Integrated Business Planning is a common-sense process that delivers spectacular results.

Boost Performance - Connect Strategy and Execution through Integrated Business Planning

Many companies struggle to bring their corporate strategies to fruition. They simply fail to execute.

Business Transformation in Global Organisations - Lessons learned and successes earned

Transforming a business in one location can present many challenges, so imagine how challenging this might be at a global level.

Managing Change

Change is difficult and painful for individuals and companies alike. It is also a fundamental part of staying in business. Nonetheless, there are ways of diminishing the grief and managing the process.

Integrated Business Planning

Latest books

The Transition from Sales and Operations Planning to Integrated Business Planning - Second Edition

In an easy-to-digest format, this book uses a fictional company to show how to transition to Integrated Business Planning. Further, it explains how companies link strategy to execution through the IBP process.

The Oliver Wight Class A Standard for Business Excellence

The Seventh Edition Class A Standard reflects all the change that has happened in arguably the most volatile and rapidly changing era; it gives you everything you need to thrive in this brave new world and build your business for the future.

Le Standard Classe A d’Oliver Wight pour l’Excellence en Entreprise

La septième édition du Standard Classe A reflète tous les changements survenus au cours de l’ère sans doute la plus instable et la plus en mutation depuis longtemps; elle vous donne tout ce dont vous avez besoin pour prospérer dans ce nouveau monde et bâtir votre entreprise pour l'avenir.

Der Class A Standard für Business Excellence nach Oliver Wight

Der Class A Standard in seiner siebten Ausgabe spiegelt all die Veränderungen wider, die in der wohl volatilsten und schnelllebigsten Ära stattgefunden haben. Es gibt Ihnen alles, was Sie benötigen, um in dieser schönen neuen Welt Wachstum zu generieren und Ihr Geschäft auf die Zukunft auszurichten.

El Estándar de Clase A para la Excelencia Empresarial de Oliver Wight

Orchestrating Success: Improve Control of the Business with Sales & Operations Planning

The authors present a dynamic approach to effectively link sales and marketing planning directly to the operations side of a business. Demonstrates how to create a connection between a company's business plan and each department's operations, accurately anticipate changes in customer's needs and significantly improve a firm's competitive position with an enhanced level of customer satisfaction.

Enterprise Sales and Operations Planning

Operational excellence cannot be achieved by technology alone. An effective sales and operations planning (S&OP) process is essential to successfully implement any integrated management system, such as enterprise resources planning or supply chain management. This book illustrates the effective real world implementation of this powerful process. It is written as a case narrative with an instructional style that managers can relate to.

An Executive's Guide to Achieving Class A Business Excellence

Executives – and aspiring executives – face challenges with increased regulations and aggressive competition, as well as economic pressures. Increased costs of running a business, poor customer service, mismanaged inventories, and weak management processes are just some of those challenges. This new book provides perspectives on how to address those challenges utilizing the transformation capabilities of some of Oliver Wight’s most experienced coaches and educators.

Integrated Business Planning

Latest videos and webinars

Balancing Planning (IBP) and Execution (ITP) in Rapidly Changing Socioeconomic Environments

Flavio Pietrocola, Oliver Wight Partner, explains how to find the right balance between Planning (IBP) and Execution (ITP) in this disruptive and rapidly changing world.

How to steer a company through the D-VUCAD world? (in German)

This podcast episode discusses how to steer companies through volatile, unpredictable times and what modern control instruments and technologies there are that companies should use.

Managing Change through Effective Implementation of Integrated Business Planning

Oliver Wight Partner, Gary Connors explains the five common failure modes in implementing Integrated Business Planning and how to manage changes through IBP.

Moving to E2E Supply Chain Management with IBP coordination

Watch the video to see Oliver Wight's CEO Les Brookes explains how to drive End-to-End supply chain transformation with IBP.

Eminox Ltd: What was it like working with Oliver Wight?

Oliver Wight Partner, Dawn Dent spoke to Eminox's Managing Director Mark Runciman, who shares his experience of working with Oliver Wight.

The Digital Supply Chain podcast

Supply Chain Resilience with Integrated Business Planning - a chat with SAP and Oliver Wight.

IBP: Driving Growth, Increasing Productivity & Improving Customer Service

Oliver Wight’s Paul Ducie joins Olivehorse Consulting to discuss how to assess your organization’s maturity, and define the correct approach for implementation.

Dynamic Integrated Business Planning: aligning process and tools to meet the challenges of an everch

The right collaboration between process and tools can deliver the IBP promise efficiently and dynamically.

The Enemies of Effective Measures

Does your business truly understand measuring and analysis? Do you apply the data and learn from it? Or are there conflicting or biased measures happening behind the scenes?

What business leaders are talking about today

Oliver Wight's Andy Walker and EY's Jocelyn Hallum discuss what business leaders are talking about today.

Financial Planning with IBP: Creating one process for your business

Join Oliver Wight Partners Monte Maritz & Lucy Jacobs for this webinar in our ongoing series focused on the evolution of Integrated Business Planning.

Data accuracy in the healthcare industry

Oliver Wight Partners Gary Connors and Steve Rowntree lift the lid on why data accuracy (or inaccuracy) is so prevalent in the healthcare industry.

Other services

Educational Public Workshops

Hands-on application workshops tailored to meet your organization's specific business objectives

Integrated Business Planning

For integrating functional plans, deploying business strategy, and driving business management

Supply Chain Management

For delivering customer value, optimal supply chain performance, and sustainable advantage

Demand Management

Creating, influencing, and managing demand

Product & Portfolio Management

For driving growth and margin through effective planning and management of your product and service portfolio

Integrated Tactical Planning

For dynamic management of product, demand, and supply plan execution

Analyze. Redefine. Transform.

For working through change and identifying key business issues and opportunities

Reset. Resilience. Results.

For focused and rapid intervention

Enterprise Business Planning

For breaking down functional silos, leveraging technology, and extending IBP benefits