Apparently many companies are confronted with the same challenges – finding an alternative to the excessive use of Excel, more precise forecasts and the way to truly integrated business planning. Last week we contributed to the “4th Global S&OP to Integrated Planning Summit” and the “Finance 4.0 – Finance Digitalisation and Transformation Summit” in Amsterdam and experienced an amazing engagement from the whole audience – nearly 200 CFOs, S&OP Directors and many other experts – regarding Digital Transformation Support in S&OP and Finance.
The feedback for the presentation of our CEO Alexander Hein for smartPMs’ integrated planning approach was very positive, and the main benefits of our AI-based Integrated Planning modules were instantly recognized by many attendees representing globally active enterprises. Some attendents of the summit are in a very early stage of connected planning, currently optimizing their processes – whereas most of the attendees demand for a solution easily connectable with all relevant business data based on top of their ERP-, CRM- or other legacy systems.
We also recognised that machine-learning methods for precise forecasts, which can identify challenging patterns in the data set are very much in demand. Our application design team and our data sciencists experienced, that AI-based forecasts including scenario based what-if-analysis and auto-detection of the best forecast method fit allow for more precise results and therefore better decisions. Another big advantage of machine learning methods is, that a lot of parameters like region, company size, products etc. are considered and weighted. The most relevant parameters are automatically selected for analysis and decision support. Plans and forecasts supported by meaningful diagrams allow for true agile decision making on the way to Digital Transformation.
From the summits in Amsterdam we take away that we are exactly on pulse of time. Good to see that our software-solutions offering pre-defined but still flexible modules from Go-to-Market planning (top-down-planning), Capacity | Demand Balancing and Sales & Marketing Performance Management to Integrated Business Planning very much meet the needs of finance, S&OP and SCM departments and allow for better decision making – linking all processes for a connected planning approach. User-friendlyness, sustainability, precision, support by an experience, flexible consulting team, an average implementation time of 3 month, highly satisfied clients and a increasing efficiency are not just buzzwords for us. We love what we do and a lot of clients, like Villeroy and Boch, Addiko Bank, WSP, Richter Pharma, Square Enix, JF Hillebrand, Hirtenberger, Austrian Institute of Technology, Helbling, Lürssen and many more recommend us. Please contact us for a demo or webcast or send us your data for working out where improvements for your company can be realized.