Research Reports

Analyst Case Study Report on Amgen Featured in Kinaxis Newsletter

This Kinaxis life sciences newsletter includes complimentary access to the Gartner Case Study: How Amgen Reinvigorated Its Supply Planning Process (Barry Blake, Hussain Mooraj: May 18, 2011)

According to the Gartner Case study, long supply cycle times require life science manufacturers to balance supply commitments, capacity management and product expiry issues. One global biotech company, Amgen, centralized elements of its planning processes and deployed a rapid planning tool to more effectively balance these requirements.
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Enabling Supply Chain Visibility and Collaboration in the Cloud
By Aberdeen Group

Companies are facing significantly increased complexity in their value chains. They also face additional challenges like rising customer service requirements, rising logistics costs and increased supply chain risk exposure. In this situation, lack of visibility and need for collaboration becomes increased in significance. Aberdeen recently benchmarked over 150 companies with respect to their supply chain application deployment strategies including on-premise, SaaS, Managed services etc. This benchmark report explores the critical role that Cloud based solutions play in enabling visibility and collaboration for the extended Demand-Supply Networks.
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How to Select a Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) System
by TEC

In this report, we provide key pointers on selecting a sales and operations planning (S&OP) system, by exploring how a mature S&OP process can help tackle key business issues, why technology is required for success on the S&OP front, and key S&OP system capabilities to look for.

At the base level, S&OP is simply a tactical or sales forecasting process for aligning production with demand. But mature S&OP processes are more than sales forecasting or tactical planning tools. S&OP is a decision-making mechanism for aligning an organization’s strategic plan with its sales, operational, and financial plans. Advanced S&OP processes provide organizations with top–bottom views, as well as the ability to collaborate bi-directionally across multiple business inputs within and outside the organization.
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S&OP Strategies for Managing Complexity within Global Supply Chains
by Aberdeen Group

Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) is the key integrated process that the supply chain organization (specifically the Chief Supply Chain Officer) can leverage to achieve visibility and transformation across the entire organization and throughout the value chain. The following study highlights the results of over 196 companies participating in a survey on S&OP related initiatives. Fifty-nine percent (59%) of respondents indicate that improving top line revenue in 2010 (versus 45% of respondents in the July 2009 Sales and Operations Planning: Integrate with Finance and Improve Revenue report) is the top pressure driving attention and resources toward S&OP initiatives.
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The Chief Supply Chain Officer Report 2010
by SCM World & Aberdeen Group

The Chief Supply Chain Officer Report 2010 is a collaboration between SCM World and Aberdeen Group. From a survey of almost 400 global executives, this report draws critical insights on how companies are re-defining the role of the supply chain leader, and in turn how those executives are positioning their organizations to remain competitive in an increasingly globalized and complex operating environment.
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Demand Management: Enabling Sell Side Collaboration
by Aberdeen Group

In these times of economic uncertainty and the global credit crunch, companies are actively seeking best practices for improving their demand network. Companies need to balance demand planning with short term responsive strategies to manage high levels of demand volatility. Aberdeen surveyed over 135 companies about their demand management practices and have highlighted specific approaches that companies with different types of supply chain — build to order, build to stock and engineer to order — have adopted with respect to demand management.
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Sales and Operations Planning: Aligning Business Goals with Supply Chain Tactics
by Aberdeen Group

Aberdeen recently published a new report entitled Sales and Operations Planning: Aligning Business Goals with Supply Chain Tactics. Because Kinaxis™ was a sponsor of this report, we're able to offer a complimentary copy of the report. The report had over 300 respondents across a variety of industries and company sizes. The goal of this year's report was to identify how the S&OP process helps corporate executives accomplish their overall business strategy, with the four broad strategies being: product differentiation, customer service differentiation, cost reduction and profitability.
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Integrated Business Planning for Global Enterprise
by Aberdeen Group

In today's challenging macro climate, the pressure to balance financial objectives with operational realities has never been greater. However, many organizations suffer from a lack of alignment between their finance, product management and supply chain professionals which leads to sub-optimal performance and reduced profitability.

Connecting the disparate parts of the enterprise and delivering real-time supply chain visibility to operational and financial information is the key to creating an integrated business where financial imperative is reconciled with operational capability to improve cash-to-cash cycles while maintaining customer service levels.
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Achieving Better Service and Profitability with More Advanced Forms of S&OP
By ARC Advisory Group

Better service (a top driver for many companies) would be very difficult to achieve without a robust sales and operations planning (S&OP) process focused on better internal and external collaboration with the goal of more effectively balancing supply with demand. This paper explores the evolving S&OP process and discusses the specific capabilities executives are looking for in their supply chain planning and demand planning solutions.
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Succeeding in an Imperfect World: Best Practices in Demand Management in the Face of Poor Forecasts and Demand Volatility
By Bruce Rayner, Technology Forecasters Inc.

For today's manufacturers volatility and poor visibility contribute to demand and supply imbalances on a daily basis. The challenge is in finding the formula for rapid and intelligent responses to constant, unexpected exceptions. Learn how, by investing in a Response Management solution, two global companies were able to improve forecast effectiveness and volatility management, increase visibility, and still meet customer demand.
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Inventory Management Breakthrough: A New Approach to Measuring and Reducing Inventory Exposure in the Supply Chain
By John Holton, Symphony Consulting

Modern manufacturers can no longer use inventory as an accurate measure of business performance. Because problems typically arise only after inventory is already on hand—and because today's decentralized, outsourced supply chains make true inventory levels increasingly hard to discern—measuring inventory exposure is a much more effective approach. By calculating exposure related to lead time, customer demand and commitments, and the process of transforming materials to products, businesses can correctly assess inventory risk, and minimize exposure through:
- Faster, better responses to supplier problems, delivery delays, and inaccurate forecasts
- Greater flexibility to handle last-minute shifts in customer demand
- Tighter inventory control through end-to-end visibility of market dynamics across the supply chain
- Immediate identification of top-priority challenges to drive inventory reductions
- Clarity about impacts of proposed inventory management changes in each business area
Download this white paper to see how to better assess and reduce inventory risk, improve customer responsiveness, and enhance your market position.
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