When Is Learning Not Learning?

A question: if a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, did it really make a noise?

A similar question about learning is: if someone learns something new, but does nothing differently as a result, did they learn anything at all?

I think the answer to both might be a big NO!

Executive S&OP is a process that leads top management to better decisions with regard to balancing demand and supply. The process does this by taking raw data and organizing it into information. This enables top management to see things differently and farther into the future, so that they can make better decisions.
 
Many years ago, W. Edwards Deming did the same thing: he took raw data used in Statistical Process Control (SPC), and organized and simplified it into pictures so that people could determine root causes for process non-conformance. It revolutionized the entire Quality Assurance world and has made a huge positive impact on industry.

In a somewhat similar way, Executive S&OP today is giving people far better visibility:

•    It organizes data and synthesizes it into information.
•    It displays that information in a manner most suitable for top management decision-making - largely via graphs not tabular spreadsheets.
•    This is coupled with defined and disciplined processes through which better decisions get made.

Having a spreadsheet without coupling it to a top management decision-making process does not qualify as Executive S&OP. Learning about this process is necessary but not sufficient; a company must use it at the executive level. When this happens, enormous benefits can result.