Blog

A year ago in May of 2020, Crude oil futures went negative to as low as -$37 a barrel. It actually meant people have to pay someone to take their oil. Are we looking at the opposite situation today? Will oil prices skyrocket given the block in the Suez Canal? With the back-up at the suezcanal and the jam, [...]

CPFR – Collaborative Planning, Forecasting, and Replenishment is on a resurgence in many companies now. This was a popular buzzword in the late 90s but now companies that sell to retail are finding the value in CPFR – the ability to get insights into customer’s inventory and sell-through at retail so they could drive intelligent replenishments to avoid stock-outs! [...]

Irrational exuberance?! Out of touch with reality?! Perhaps a dreamy La La Land of stocks and Index funds fueled by tweets and free money printed in Washington DC?! Investors are buying stock like nothing else matters. Trading and re-trading and rocketing up valuations?! There are all questions and my wonderment at the amazing Nasdaq that has almost doubled since [...]

What should be the guiding objective of the corporate supply chain? With the Covid-19 pandemic, new questions have arisen about the effectiveness of Supply Chain Management principles. Supply Chains were caught flat-footed, nay almost footless, in handling the response to the global crisis and may supply chain failures. Out of stock on many products at shelf, inability to react [...]

Valtitude / Demand Planning LLC has transformed our offerings and services to help our customers, employees and vendors cope up with the Covid-19 Pandemic. We have taken the following steps to protect our customers, employees and all stakeholders: 1. Most of our employees work from home both in the USA as well as in our overseas offices. We have [...]

Demand planning Net is introducing our hands-on 3-day workshop on Demand planning for S&OP in Live – Virtual format for the first time on Sept 13 – 15, 2021. Get the complete Workshop Experience from the Safety of your Home! Join us and learn recent trends and best practices in Demand Planning and Sales Forecasting. Certified Analyst in Demand [...]

Many mid-market companies do not have a well-defined Demand-Planning function. Typically the commercial team does a forecast at the brand level for their own target setting purposes. The Sales team may have an order based forecast for meeting their sales targets. The Marketing team may actually decide on the production targets working with the supply planners. The end-result is [...]

I am longing to go to a baseball game, get a sense of the noise, and take in the chaos and enjoy a real close game at the Fenway Park! That is what summer is all about! Should we plan for a full stadium in early fall? perhaps the summer of 2021? What are the possible scenarios that will [...]

Demand Planning & Financial Forecasting After Covid-19 Pandemic The Great Pandemic created the great disruption although not a dislocation yet – all of us are huddled inside our homes for the most part except for those noble souls namely Front line workers and Essential workers. The great disruption is magnifying the importance of risk identification and mitigation across the [...]