CASE STUDY
Implementing integrated business planning for an international food companyOur client was a family founded company which evolved into a prominent global producer of high-quality potato products. With a very diverse product range, strong seasonality in both demand and supply of raw materials, and a strong focus on export in a globalized market, our client operates in a highly complex environment. Major changes in consumer behaviour, combined with a significant planned capacity increase in a CAPEX-heavy environment stimulate the need for long-term planning.
Strategic Context
Competitive potato production industry, with a stagnating demand after years of strong growth.
Upcoming large-scale plant investments will impact production capacity.
Challenges
Challenges
- Engaged organization yet swamped with work leading to a reactive fire-fighting culture with need for more efficient decision-making processes
- Limited cross-functional processes / many silo excel files
- Reducing effort to run the business is essential to be ready for growth through upcoming capacity extensions
- The short planning horizon makes it difficult to effectively manage the limited shelf life of potato products
Objectives
Objectives
The objective of this IBP project is to enhance the organization’s long–term decision-making capabilities by creating a forward-looking, integrated, and financially optimized planning process.
- Better risk management and improved resilience by being able to look 12-24 months ahead
- One set of numbers – align departments with a single unified set of numbers and an integrated plan (incl. mix & pricing mgmt)
- Monetization of information to allow for better decision-taking
- Building scalable processes to be fit for growth
- Better servicing customers in a more efficient way
Our approach
Our approach
- Executing an iterative approach, collaborating with step owners to refine the process in a design-by-doing mode. Identifying improvement opportunities & implementing them each IBP cycle to optimize efficiency & effectiveness. E.g. gradually enlarging the planning horizon from 3 to 12 months and beyond
- Putting in place clear owners for the IBP steps and establishing a clear calendar and IBP cadence
- Creating breathing space for the organization by reviewing and optimizing the existing meeting structure to improve efficiency and effectiveness, combining or eliminating unnecessary meetings feeding the IBP process
- Managing the implementation of a specialized IBP tool while also creating templates to consolidate data, enabling clear analysis and informed decision-making in review meetings. A structured communication system ensured key insights flow seamlessly across IBP steps.
- Focussing on one set of numbers, with each IBP step leveraging and building upon the same numbers for consistent analysis
Results
Results
- A comprehensive view of future demand, production volumes, and earnings, provides the insights needed for proactive, scenario-based business steering.
- Improved Demand forecasting & Commercial Focus– Better demand visibility supports key decisions (pricing, stockouts) while increasing commercial teams’ ownership of forecasts.
- Early detection of capacity constraints allows for agile long-term planning, cost-effective variety management, and customer-driven production.
- A clear senior team platform ensures impactful and well-informed strategic decisions.