Fingerprints - A Key to Success

In the past few decades, many tools have been developed with the potential to contribute to a company's competitive advantage. None of them, however, represent a quick fix. All of them require a good deal of effort by the people who have to make them work - to have their personal "fingerprints" on it.

We've seen dozens of companies use Executive S&OP in a highly effective fashion. While there are some common principles among all who use Executive S&OP effectively, the application of those principles to a specific environment is anything but common. Making it work is dependent upon the company, its products, its customers, and its operating environment.

We always begin our work with a company as the "teacher," but a company's success makes it so that we leave as the "student." What this means is that a company's people are the ones who make Executive S&OP work at their company. As such, they become the "teachers" by the time they are done.  

The reasons for this are:

•    While the outsider is the Executive S&OP expert, the insider is the expert about your company; it takes both to make Executive S&OP work.
•    Because Executive S&OP means making substantive change to past practice, letting go of the past only happens when ownership and confidence in the future exists.
•    This pride of ownership by the people who have to make Executive S&OP work is far more important to success than any technical fix. It is what generates the energy for change.
•    Continuous improvement continues after the outsider is long gone.

In this arena of balancing demand and supply, the lead role is with the practitioner - not with academics or consultants. All lasting success with Executive S&OP has the fingerprints upon it of presidents, vice presidents, directors, and managers - the owners of the old processes that had to be changed.