Manufacturers are shifting from scanning to planning—placing renewed focus on modelling scenarios amid geopolitical, economic, and social disruptions.
The latest research from enterprise planning technology provider Board, reveals that manufacturers are placing a renewed focus on scenario planning in response to a volatile business landscape. According to the Board 2024 Global Planning Survey, 70% of manufacturers (all industries: 71%) are taking planning more seriously, with the Ukraine war, cost-of-living crisis, and ongoing supply chain disruptions acting as key catalysts.
Labour shortages (manufacturers: 39%; all industries: 36%), blocking of key supply chain channels (manufacturers: 27%; all industries: 30%) and fluctuating oil prices (manufacturers: 27%; all industries: 29%) top the list of key business threats that decision makers are currently making plans for.
Despite an emphasis on planning to help navigate these disruptions, many manufacturers continue to face challenges in planning effectively. The survey reveals signs of planning fatigue within many companies, highlighting a 14% decrease in how seriously companies are taking planning compared to last year.
Nearly three quarters (manufacturers: 71%; all industries:73%) of decision makers admit their organisation makes planning decisions based on assumptions. Together, these findings suggest that many are struggling to implement data-driven decision-making. Over a quarter (manufacturers: 28%; all industries: 29%) of respondents report that ineffective planning has impacted profitability, productivity and the ability to drive innovations, new products or services.
The agile planning gap
Adopting an agile and integrated approach to planning is critical for companies to drive increased flexibility, streamlined operations, faster time-to-market and improved collaboration and resource allocation in a rapidly evolving market landscape.
However, the survey identifies a concerning agile planning gap that highlights a significant disconnect between aspirations and reality. The survey found that 70% of manufacturers (all industries: 73%) believe their organisation is equipped for agile planning, but only 16% of manufacturers (all industries: 17%) have the right processes and technologies in place to make this a reality.
For companies looking to close this gap, the survey found three key barriers: poor data quality and governance (manufacturers: 48%; all industries: 46%), ineffective processes based on largely manual activities (manufacturers: 48%; all industries: 48%) and a lack of modern tools and technologies (manufacturers: 46%; all industries 43%).
Underpinning each of these barriers is an overreliance on static spreadsheets. The survey found 47% of manufacturers (all industries: 55%) use spreadsheets, like Excel, for at least half of their business planning – a source of potential risk due to limitations caused by manual data entry and lack of real-time data integration. The survey also found that 66% of manufacturers (all industries: 71%) fail to consider enough potential future scenarios when planning, which can also leave them unprepared for unexpected events.
Bridging the gap to successful agile planning
Organisations are looking to AI to overhaul their approach as they shift towards data-driven, agile planning. 45% of respondents (all industries: 46%) are exploring machine learning to improve decision-making, while 46% (all industries: 44%) are looking to AI-powered business intelligence tools. A third (manufacturers: 36%; all industries: 34%) of respondents also plan to adopt generative AI tools to enhance their decision-making process.
“By embracing enterprise intelligent planning tools and agile planning processes, companies can analyse internal and external data to plan for a range of eventualities, to drive more informed, proactive decision making and improved business outcomes,” added Gavin Fallon, General Manager UKI at Board. “Over the next decade companies that don’t shift to running their business on a fully integrated planning system will be facing an uphill battle.”
Case in point
KUKA, a leading manufacturer of industrial robots and automation solutions chose to create a company-wide, rolling planning process to aid growth. This included restructuring its planning organisation by decentralising future planning into the counter-flow process and introducing workflows and approval hierarchies. Board Enterprise Planning was selected as the technology to underpin the process transformation. KUKA now have increased standardisation, control, accuracy, and collaboration. Board’s Enterprise Planning software is now used in all 30 sales companies of KUKA Robotics in Germany, Europe, and Asia as well as North and South America. Read the full case study here.
About the survey:
1,510 decision-makers across the UK (304 respondents), USA (302), Germany (302), France (302) and Italy (300), working in the finance (631), supply chain (502) or merchandise planning functions (394); across retail (494), manufacturing (498) and CPG (518) businesses with 500+ employees were surveyed online between the 9th February and the 20th February 2024. You can read the survey here.
About Board:
Board Enterprise Planning solutions help over 2,000 organisations worldwide plan smarter, enable actionable insights, and achieve better outcomes. Industry leaders trust Board to unify strategy, finance, and operations through more integrated and intelligent planning, so they can take full control of performance. Partnering with Board, global companies such as Coca-Cola, KUKA, Mitsubishi Electric, Gigaset and Groupe Seb have transformed their planning processes to build a competitive edge.
Founded in 1994, and now with 25 offices worldwide, Board is recognised by leading analysts including BARC, Gartner, and IDC.
Gavin Fallon is the General Manager for UK and Ireland Board. With more than 25 years’ experience, Gavin has spent the last 23 years at Board working in roles including Head of Services & Consulting and Product Director. With his passion and experience, Gavin is widely considered an expert in the application of Enterprise Performance Management (EPM).
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