Does S&OP review both SKU and brand level forecasts?
Typically, S&OP should be looking at family or aggregate totals. It’s presumed that demand management, and sales and marketing people are managing the SKU and brand level forecasts as part of their detailed forecasting job, and the results of this are then rolled up or reconciled to the S&OP number, as discussed in the previous question. However, if an SKU or brand forecast played a significant part in the total, it could be discussed either by exception in an S&OP meeting, or perhaps routinely in a forecast meeting or partnership meeting prior to the executive meeting. Some companies have a few SKU’s that represent a significant percentage of their total sales in a family, so they routinely review those SKU’s in each meeting. Other companies hold very extensive demand review meetings prior to their S&OP meetings, where they spend hours reviewing brand level forecasts with key customers, since they may sell huge amounts through a few large customers, such as mass merchandisers.
