Sales and operations planning: empirical insights into perceived relevance and lack of implementation

ABSTRACT

The objective of the paper is to advance the understanding of the relationship between the reasons for not using Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP), the perceived relevance of S&OP and the performance of the firm. This study is based on 156 valid answers to a questionnaire-survey distributed among Danish manufacturers. Furthermore, secondary performance data on return on investment and net income index are included in the analysis. The results indicate that the more the respondents perceive a lack of knowledge about S&OP the more they perceive the relevance of S&OP. The results also convey that the more the respondents perceive unrecognised needs the less they perceive the relevance of S&OP. Furthermore, the results show that lack of implementation skills does not influence the relevance of S&OP. The results also indicate that the perceived relevance of S&OP is interrelated with sales performance in terms of customer and delivery performance but not with operational or financial performance.

KEYWORDS:

• Questionnaire survey
• maturity
• readiness
• performance
• SME

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the Danish Industry foundation for funding a research project with focus on improving competitiveness through Sales & Operations Planning with a special focus on small and medium-sized enterprises and behaviour.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jan Stentoft

Jan Stentoft, Ph.D., is a professor of Supply Chain Management at the Department of Entrepreneurship and Relationship Management at University of Southern Denmark. His research and teaching interest are within sales & operations planning, lean management, supply chain management, supply chain innovation, and the movement of production to various locations from a global perspective and with emphasis of using advanced technologies. He has practical industry experience from positions at LEGO, Gumlink and from management consulting activities in a wide number of private and public organisations.

Christopher Rajkumar

Christopher Rajkumar, Ph.D., is an associate professor of Operations Management at MYRA School of Business, Karnataka in India. His research interest includes supply chain management, strategic sourcing, sourcing innovation, supply chain innovation and supplier relationship management.

Per Vagn Freytag

Per Vagn Freytag, Ph.D., is a professor in Business-to-Business Marketing at the Department of Entrepreneurship and Relationship Management at University of Southern Denmark. His research and teaching interest are within business marketing, business development and lean management. He has worked collaboratively with Industry for more than 25 years in advancing rigorous and relevant theory development.

Ole Stegmann Mikkelsen

Ole Stegmann Mikkelsen, Ph.D., is an associate professor in Supply Chain Management (SCM) at the Department of Entrepreneurship and Relationship Management, University of Southern Denmark. His research and teaching areas are within SCM, global sourcing, strategic sourcing, sales & operations planning, supply chain innovation and manufacturing globalisation strategies. He has practical experience from positions as purchaser/planner from Milliken Denmark A/S, and Director (Group Procurement Development and Support/finance) at Danfoss A/S.