Discussions Replies 175 words 2 threads operations Management

Thread 1

Forecasting

Nestle partnered with an analytics company to further their forecasting efforts that began around 2015 in Brazil. The company worked to develop demand driven solutions to enable Nestle to create a more effective supply chain process. Demand driven forecasting allows the company to maintain a better idea of how much income will come in yearly as well as keep track of rises necessary in inventory. An example of this is occasions where the product is more in demand than normal like Christmas or Valentine’s Day. Knowing how demand will fluctuate through forecasting has already showed a 9% improvement in Nestle as a company in areas surrounding demand and including customer service. Nestle had previously been working off of historical data while predicting future sales and revenue. This approach is normal, but being able to do a statistical analysis with models through forecasting is a game changer for the company. Tracking trends and holidays are critical factors in improving a manufacturing work environment. Further, Nestle is looking towards using this method of forecasting in distribution centers, as well as continuing to look into which variables affect the change of demand and are affected by it. The company Nestle partnered with is called SAS which is a statistical analysis and services company that specializes in forecasting for companies like Nestle. Forecasting allows companies to get closer to reaching their financial a growth goals while staying dynamic and innovative to predict the flow of the market. Demand driven forecasting is becoming an almost necessary tool.
Maier, Thomas. Nestle enhances demand forecast with SAS analysis solutions. Oct.  2017. https://www.sas.com/de_ch/news/press-releases/2017/oktober/2017-10-12-nestle-enhances-demand-forecast-with-sas-analysis-solutions.html

Thread 2

“Strategic Planning: A Road Map to Success.”
Definition: 
Strategies: Plans for achieving organizational goals (Stevenson, 2018, pg. 44).
Summary:
There are stages to strategic planning and it’s important that they are followed in order to achieve organizational goals:
1. Boundary Conditions and Specification of Decision Criteria: This is the first stage in the strategic planning process. It’s management’s job to visualize the scope with clarity; understanding the market and business of which they conduct to plan strategically (Kukreja, 2013). Understanding the criteria will eliminate confusion of the main objective in pursuing the organization’s goals (Kukreja, 2013).
2. Industry Analysis: There are some great tools that are available to utilize purposely to reveal opportunities and to disclose weaknesses within an organization. Tools such as SWOT, PESTLE, SCP, Porters 5 forces and Scenario Planning (Kukreja, 2013).
3. Status Quo Analysis: This specific analysis supposes that the organization doesn’t implement any type of major adjustment any time soon. The organization focuses on operational effectiveness and tactical procedures purposely to achieve more profit, lower expenses, and increased market share (Kukreja, 2013).
4. Strategic Options Generation: This step includes the Executive Committee/Senior Leadership Team and can be time consuming. The leadership team should be able to explain the specific strategy in one or two pages. Understanding key success factors promotes a crucial role in underlining different strategic options (Kukreja, 2013).
5. Options Assessment and Evaluation: Financial analysis is included at this stage and specific tools such as scenario planning are utilized. Decision making is made at this stage under uncertainty. A strategist is expected to spend some time with their appointed project team and they brainstorm amongst different scenarios, various assumptions and decisions pertaining to the price and volume of their commodity (Kukreja, 2013).
6. Articulation of Strategic Roadmap: Once the strategic options have been formulated, the strategic plan is submitted to the decision makers. Key issues must be addressed such as the game plan, goals, risks/returns and investments. There must be an agreed upon plan before implemented (Kukreja, 2013).
7. Deployment of Strategy: Once there has been a strategy document agreed upon by the leadership team, there are many different tools that can be utilized by the organization to implement their specific strategy. One that is highly effective is a Balanced Scorecard. This tool displays a visual report between the organization’s strategic objective and the key results produced by the strategy which has been implemented by the leadership team (Kukreja, 2013).
Discussion:
This specific article that I have chosen relates to the key term strategies, which pertains to planning purposely to achieve organizational goals. To produce efficiently in an organization, there must be planning conducted by the leadership team. Strategic planning is provided as a guide, giving direction in pursuit for their organization’s specified goals. Strategic planning is a game plan on how an organization attempts to profit from utilizing their resources in an efficient manner. Goals are destinations and strategies are the roadmaps purposely provided to guide an organization into success (Stevenson, 2018, pg. 45).
References
Graham, Kenny (2018) “6 Steps to Make your Strategic Plan really Strategic.”
https://hbr.org/2018/08/6-steps-to-make-your-strategic-plan-really-strategic
Kukreja, Deepak (2013) “Strategic Planning: A Roadmap to Success.”

Strategic Planning: A Roadmap to Success

Redman, Paul B. (2013) “Five Essentials of Strategic Planning.”
https://ssir.org/articles/entry/five_essentials_of_strategic_planning#bio-footer
Stevenson, William J. (2018) “Operations Management.” Thirteenth Edition. Published by 
McGraw-Hill Education, 2 Penn Plaza, New York, NY 10121