TABLE OF CONTENTS DOCUMENT HISTORY 5 UPDATE 17D 5 Revision History 5 Overview 5 Demand Management 6 Forecast Unique Demand Segments 6 Foresee Impact of Events 6 Maintain Audit Trail on Measure Updates 6 Aggregate Data for Non-Key Customers 6 Import Data at Aggregate Levels 6 Collect and Manage Planning Data More Efficiently 6 Schedule Planning Processes 6 Monitor Planning Processes and Improve Planning Data Quality 6 Sales and Operations Planning 7 Aggregate Data for Non-Key Customers 7 Import Data at Aggregate Levels 7 Collect and Manage Planning Data More Efficiently 7 Schedule Planning Processes 7 Monitor Planning Processes and Improve Planning Data Quality 7 Maintain Audit Trail on Measure Updates 7 Supply Planning 7 Plan for Rework and Transform Work Orders 7 Collaborate with Suppliers by Start Dates of Forecasted Orders 7 Publish Detailed Order Information to Suppliers 8 Analyze Configure-to-Order Model Forecast and Sales Orders Together 8 Publish Order Forecast to Oracle Supply Chain Collaboration Cloud in One Step 8 Maintain Audit Trail on Measure Updates 8 Aggregate Data for Non-Key Customers 8 Import Data at Aggregate Levels 8 Collect and Manage Planning Data More Efficiently 8 Schedule Planning Processes 8 Monitor Planning Processes and Improve Planning Data Quality 8 Simplify Setup of Planners 9 Planning Central 9 Plan for Rework and Transform Work Orders 9 Collaborate with Suppliers by Start Dates of Forecasted Orders 9 Publish Detailed Order Information to Suppliers 9 Analyze Configure-to-Order Model Forecast and Sales Orders Together 9 Publish Order Forecast to Oracle Supply Chain Collaboration Cloud in One Step 9 Maintain Audit Trail on Measure Updates 9 Aggregate Data for Non-Key Customers 9 Import Data at Aggregate Levels 10 Collect and Manage Planning Data More Efficiently 10 Schedule Planning Processes 10 Monitor Planning Processes and Improve Planning Data Quality 10 Simplify Setup of Planners 10 UPDATE 17C 10 Revision History 10 Overview 10 2
Demand Management 11 Calculate Channel-Specific Planning Percentages 11 Use Oracle Sales and Operations Planning Cloud Measures in Oracle Demand Management Cloud 11 Compare Plan Versus Actuals In Real Time 12 Sales and Operations Planning 12 Manage Data Using Sales Organization Dimension 12 Use Oracle Sales and Operations Planning Cloud Measures in Oracle Demand Management Cloud 12 Compare Plan Versus Actuals In Real Time 12 Supply Planning 13 Plan for Configured Product Fulfillment Using Drop Ship 13 Planning Central 13 Plan for Configured Product Fulfillment Using Drop Ship 13 UPDATE 17B 13 Revision History 14 Overview 14 Demand Management 14 Sense Demand 15 Manage Multiple Demand Signals 15 Analyze Demand Signals 15 Capture Business Insights 16 Predict Demand 16 Generate Statistical Forecasts 16 Establish a Robust Demand Plan 17 Forecast Configure-to-Order Products 17 Analyze Forecast Accuracy 18 Shape Demand 18 Forecast New Products 18 Simulate Forecast Scenarios 18 Collaborate On and Synchronize Demand Plans 19 Additional Demand Management Enhancements 19 Integrate with Supply Chain Management Cloud and Other Sources 19 Sales and Operations Planning 20 Analyze to Make Better Decisions 20 Analyze Plan Performance with Best Practice S&OP Dashboards, Layouts, and Reports 20 Configure Analytics to Meet Your Unique Needs 21 Manage by Exception to Focus on What s Most Important 21 Integrate with Microsoft Excel 22 Understand How Plans Have Changed Using Waterfall Charts 22 Align the Enterprise with Best Practice Process Management and Collaboration Features 22 Enable Best Practices with S&OP Process Management 22 Arrive at a Consensus One-Number Enterprise Operating Plan 23 Collaborate with Stakeholders on Plans Using Oracle Social Network 23 Ensure Continuity and Provide Accountability Using Planning Notes 23 Act by Creating New Plans and Connecting Plans with Execution 24 Plan at an Aggregate Level for Strategic Time Horizons 24 Run Quick Demand Simulations to Reflect Changed Assumptions 24 Run Rapid Supply Simulations to Balance Supply with Demand 24 Select the Best Plan with Plan Over Plan Comparison 25 Link Tactical Planning with S&OP 25 Link S&OP Plans Back to Tactical Planning 25 Integrate with Oracle Supply Chain Management Cloud and Other Sources 25 Collect Data From Oracle Supply Chain Management Cloud Applications 25 3
Integrate with Your Existing Third-Party Systems 26 Supply Planning 26 Plan Supply 27 Create Supply Plans 27 Calculate and Plan Safety Stock 27 Tailor the Scope of Plans to Your Business Needs 28 Plan for Configure-to-Order Products 28 Plan for Multiple Fulfillment Strategies 28 Monitor Supply Chain Performance 29 Monitor Plan Performance at the Aggregate Level 29 Use Guided Navigation to Analyze Root Causes 29 Analyze Build Plan 30 Configure Embedded Analytics and Navigation to Suit Your Needs 30 Tailor the User Interface to Your Enterprise Standards and Processes 30 Analyze Plans Using Your Own Measures and Hierarchies 31 Analyze Plan in a Spreadsheet 31 Respond to Changing Conditions 31 Simulate Changes and Identify Opportunities 31 Compare Plans 32 Manage by Exception 32 Prioritize Work Orders with Ready-to-Build Status 32 Collaborate with Suppliers 33 Collaborate with Stakeholders on Plans Using Oracle Social Network 33 Collaborate with Other Planners Using Notes 33 Integrate Planning and Execution 33 Collect Data from Oracle Cloud 33 Collect Data from External Data Sources 34 Integrate with Oracle Sales and Operations Planning Cloud 34 Integrate with Oracle Demand Management Cloud 34 Integrate with Oracle Global Order Promising Cloud 34 Release Recommendations to Execution 34 Report Using Oracle Transactional Business Intelligence 35 Planning Central 35 Enhance Planning for Configure-to-Order Products 35 Plan for Multiple Fulfillment Strategies 35 Collaborate with Stakeholders on Plans Using Oracle Social Network 36 Integrate with Oracle Supply Chain Collaboration Cloud 36 Integrate with Oracle Sales and Operations Planning Cloud 36 Collect Data From External Data Sources 36 4
DOCUMENT HISTORY This document will continue to evolve as existing sections change and new information is added. All updates appear in the following table: Date Update Version Notes 06 OCT 2017 Update 17D New features delivered in update 17D. 11 AUG 2017 Update 17C New features delivered in update 17C. 07 APR 2017 Update 17B New features delivered in update 17B. UPDATE 17D REVISION HISTORY This document will continue to evolve as existing sections change and new information is added. All updates appear in the following table: Date Feature Notes 06 OCT 2017 Created initial document. OVERVIEW This guide outlines the information you need to know about new or improved functionality in this update. DISCLAIMER The information contained in this document may include statements about Oracle s product development plans. Many factors can materially affect Oracle s product development plans and the nature and timing of future product releases. Accordingly, this Information is provided to you solely for information only, is not a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality, and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions. The development, release, and timing of any features or functionality described remains at the sole discretion of Oracle. This information may not be incorporated into any contractual agreement with Oracle or its subsidiaries or affiliates. Oracle specifically disclaims any liability with respect to this information. Refer to the Legal Notices and Terms of Use for further information. 5
DEMAND MANAGEMENT FORECAST UNIQUE DEMAND SEGMENTS Segment products, customers, channels, etc., based on their demand characteristics to improve the overall forecast accuracy. You can now evaluate various forecasting profiles for demand segments to get a tailored and improved statistical forecast for a segment s demand. FORESEE IMPACT OF EVENTS Assess the impact of events, such as product discounts, sales and marketing tactics, and business interruptions on the forecast through visual analysis and breakdown of the forecast into its constituent parts. Along with the existing capability to foresee the impact by causal factors, you can also gauge the magnitude of change caused solely by an event. MAINTAIN AUDIT TRAIL ON MEASURE UPDATES Audit the chronological trail of manual data edits to improve accountability and understand the reasons for changes. AGGREGATE DATA FOR NON-KEY CUSTOMERS Organize planning data by key customers and non-key customers. You can now focus your supply chain planning analysis and issue resolution on the most important customers. IMPORT DATA AT AGGREGATE LEVELS Load data at an aggregate level. The application automatically disaggregates the external data to the more granular stored level. Loading data at an aggregate level minimizes the effort required for data preparation. COLLECT AND MANAGE PLANNING DATA MORE EFFICIENTLY Manage data in Oracle Supply Chain Planning Cloud intuitively and efficiently with enhanced collections mechanisms. SCHEDULE PLANNING PROCESSES Schedule the technical process involved in running a plan. You can now schedule and run the planning process at a convenient time without affecting your day-to-day planning activities. 6
SALES AND OPERATIONS PLANNING AGGREGATE DATA FOR NON-KEY CUSTOMERS Organize planning data by key customers and non-key customers. You can now focus your supply chain planning analysis and issue resolution on the most important customers. IMPORT DATA AT AGGREGATE LEVELS Load data at an aggregate level. The application automatically disaggregates the external data to the more granular stored level. Loading data at an aggregate level minimizes the effort required for data preparation. COLLECT AND MANAGE PLANNING DATA MORE EFFICIENTLY Manage data in Oracle Supply Chain Planning Cloud intuitively and efficiently with enhanced collections mechanisms. SCHEDULE PLANNING PROCESSES Schedule the technical process involved in running a plan. You can now schedule and run the planning process at a convenient time without affecting your day-to-day planning activities. MONITOR PLANNING PROCESSES AND IMPROVE PLANNING DATA QUALITY Review messages encountered when running a plan, such as errors, warnings, and other information and act on them to improve plan data quality. MAINTAIN AUDIT TRAIL ON MEASURE UPDATES Audit the chronological trail of manual data edits to improve accountability and understand the reasons for changes. SUPPLY PLANNING PLAN FOR REWORK AND TRANSFORM WORK ORDERS Create a more accurate plan by taking potential supply and anticipated demand requirements into consideration for materials originating from work orders of the type rework and transform. COLLABORATE WITH SUPPLIERS BY START DATES OF FORECASTED ORDERS Collaborate with suppliers on the date they need to start manufacturing so that a component is available on time for your downstream manufacturing processes. 7
PUBLISH DETAILED ORDER INFORMATION TO SUPPLIERS Publish the expected and firm demand on the supplier site by displaying the demand by status. The integration with Oracle Supply Chain Collaboration Cloud now offers this capability. ANALYZE CONFIGURE-TO-ORDER MODEL FORECAST AND SALES ORDERS TOGETHER View forecast for the configure-to-order model and the actual sales orders for the model together on the Material Plan page. This was not possible earlier because the order management processes created a transient item identifier based on the options selected. PUBLISH ORDER FORECAST TO ORACLE SUPPLY CHAIN COLLABORATION CLOUD IN ONE STEP Publish the order forecasts from a plan from Oracle Planning Central Cloud or Oracle Supply Planning Cloud to Oracle Supply Chain Collaboration Cloud in one step. You can execute this step as a plan action, or from the Supplies and Demands page or from the Items page. Additionally, you no longer need to save the plan to be able to publish the order forecast to Supply Chain Collaboration. MAINTAIN AUDIT TRAIL ON MEASURE UPDATES Audit the chronological trail of manual data edits to improve accountability and understand the reasons for changes. AGGREGATE DATA FOR NON-KEY CUSTOMERS Organize planning data by key customers and non-key customers. You can now focus your supply chain planning analysis and issue resolution on the most important customers. IMPORT DATA AT AGGREGATE LEVELS Load data at an aggregate level. The application automatically disaggregates the external data to the more granular stored level. Loading data at an aggregate level minimizes the effort required for data preparation. COLLECT AND MANAGE PLANNING DATA MORE EFFICIENTLY Manage data in Oracle Supply Chain Planning Cloud intuitively and efficiently with enhanced collections mechanisms. SCHEDULE PLANNING PROCESSES Schedule the technical process involved in running a plan. You can now schedule and run the planning process at a convenient time without affecting your day-to-day planning activities. MONITOR PLANNING PROCESSES AND IMPROVE PLANNING DATA QUALITY Review messages encountered when running a plan, such as errors, warnings, and other information and act on them to improve plan data quality. 8
SIMPLIFY SETUP OF PLANNERS Define material planners without associating them with a specific organization. This feature simplifies the management of material planners in Oracle Planning Central Cloud and Oracle Supply Planning Cloud, a core setup task required for the proper analysis and execution of a plan. PLANNING CENTRAL PLAN FOR REWORK AND TRANSFORM WORK ORDERS Create a more accurate plan by taking potential supply and anticipated demand requirements into consideration for materials originating from work orders of the type rework and transform. COLLABORATE WITH SUPPLIERS BY START DATES OF FORECASTED ORDERS Collaborate with suppliers on the date they need to start manufacturing so that a component is available on time for your downstream manufacturing processes. PUBLISH DETAILED ORDER INFORMATION TO SUPPLIERS Publish the expected and firm demand on the supplier site by displaying the demand by status. The integration with Oracle Supply Chain Collaboration Cloud now offers this capability. ANALYZE CONFIGURE-TO-ORDER MODEL FORECAST AND SALES ORDERS TOGETHER View forecast for the configure-to-order model and the actual sales orders for the model together on the Material Plan page. This was not possible earlier because the order management processes created a transient item identifier based on the options selected. PUBLISH ORDER FORECAST TO ORACLE SUPPLY CHAIN COLLABORATION CLOUD IN ONE STEP Publish the order forecasts from a plan from Oracle Planning Central Cloud or Oracle Supply Planning Cloud to Oracle Supply Chain Collaboration Cloud in one step. You can execute this step as a plan action, or from the Supplies and Demands page or from the Items page. Additionally, you no longer need to save the plan to be able to publish the order forecast to Supply Chain Collaboration. MAINTAIN AUDIT TRAIL ON MEASURE UPDATES Audit the chronological trail of manual data edits to improve accountability and understand the reasons for changes. AGGREGATE DATA FOR NON-KEY CUSTOMERS Organize planning data by key customers and non-key customers. You can now focus your supply chain planning analysis and issue resolution on the most important customers. 9
IMPORT DATA AT AGGREGATE LEVELS Load data at an aggregate level. The application automatically disaggregates the external data to the more granular stored level. Loading data at an aggregate level minimizes the effort required for data preparation. COLLECT AND MANAGE PLANNING DATA MORE EFFICIENTLY Manage data in Oracle Supply Chain Planning Cloud intuitively and efficiently with enhanced collections mechanisms. SCHEDULE PLANNING PROCESSES Schedule the technical process involved in running a plan. You can now schedule and run the planning process at a convenient time without affecting your day-to-day planning activities. MONITOR PLANNING PROCESSES AND IMPROVE PLANNING DATA QUALITY Review messages encountered when running a plan, such as errors, warnings, and other information and act on them to improve plan data quality. SIMPLIFY SETUP OF PLANNERS Define material planners without associating them with a specific organization. This feature simplifies the management of material planners in Oracle Planning Central Cloud and Oracle Supply Planning Cloud, a core setup task required for the proper analysis and execution of a plan. UPDATE 17C REVISION HISTORY This document will continue to evolve as existing sections change and new information is added. All updates appear in the following table: Date Feature Notes 11 AUG 2017 Created initial document. 10
OVERVIEW This guide outlines the information you need to know about new or improved functionality in this update. DISCLAIMER The information contained in this document may include statements about Oracle s product development plans. Many factors can materially affect Oracle s product development plans and the nature and timing of future product releases. Accordingly, this Information is provided to you solely for information only, is not a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality, and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions. The development, release, and timing of any features or functionality described remains at the sole discretion of Oracle. This information may not be incorporated into any contractual agreement with Oracle or its subsidiaries or affiliates. Oracle specifically disclaims any liability with respect to this information. Refer to the Legal Notices and Terms of Use for further information. DEMAND MANAGEMENT CALCULATE CHANNEL-SPECIFIC PLANNING PERCENTAGES Configure to Order manufacturing has grown in complexity leading to many planning challenges. Manufacturers frequently encounter situations where the planning percentages for the options vary based on demand class (a construct typically used to model different customer channels). This new feature set allows you to: Calculate planning percentages based on history derived on the demand class in addition to item and organization. You can optionally choose to manually override these calculated planning percentages. Use planning percentages to explode the model forecasts down to the dependent demand forecasts. Additional enhancements in Oracle Supply Planning Cloud allow you to use both the model and exploded option forecast to plan effectively. These improvements enhance customer satisfaction by allowing you to offer extensively customizable products, while still being able to fulfill orders at the intended service levels with minimal impact to inventory holding costs. USE ORACLE SALES AND OPERATIONS PLANNING CLOUD MEASURES IN ORACLE DEMAND MANAGEMENT CLOUD To execute on your sales and operations plan you will want visibility into the sales and operations plan in your tactical demand management process. For example, you would want to see your sales and operations planning (S&OP) consensus forecast when manually adjusting the demand forecast in Oracle Demand Management Cloud, based on new information available between S&OP cycles. With this release, you can view S&OP plan measures while using Demand Management by exporting measures from Oracle Sales and Operations Planning Cloud to Demand Management. This visibility allows demand planners to make tactical adjustments to plans while respecting decisions made during the S&OP process. 11
COMPARE PLAN VERSUS ACTUALS IN REAL TIME Sharing key information from planning applications, combined with real-time execution data, such as orders, with a wider audience is critical to escalate and solve business issues. With this release, you can create and run your own reports using Oracle Transactional Business Intelligence with additional measures that reflect the current consensus forecast. Additionally, this data can be combined with the sales data from Oracle Order Management Cloud. This allows planners and executives to monitor the plan against the actual realized orders without data latency. Planners and executives can also make expedient decisions that do not have to wait for the next run of the planning processes to refresh the data. SALES AND OPERATIONS PLANNING MANAGE DATA USING SALES ORGANIZATION DIMENSION A forecast from the sales team is a key input to the demand management and sales and operations planning (S&OP) processes. The ability to import, view, or edit the sales forecast and related data at a granular level, such as a regional manager s level or even an individual sales representative s territory level is usually required as part of the demand management and S&OP processes. In this release, a new sales organization dimension is available for representing the Sales Territory hierarchy of a company. You can manage sales forecasts down to the individual territory level and view forecasts with other data, such as sales orders and forecast accuracy. You can set up the data for this hierarchy in Oracle Sales Cloud as part of the Internal Organization hierarchy definition or collect the data using flat file interfaces. With this feature, planners can pinpoint problems, discuss forecasts with sales colleagues, and fine-tune forecasts as needed. USE ORACLE SALES AND OPERATIONS PLANNING CLOUD MEASURES IN ORACLE DEMAND MANAGEMENT CLOUD To execute on your sales and operations plan you will want visibility into the sales and operations plan in your tactical demand management process. For example, you would want to see your sales and operations planning (S&OP) consensus forecast when manually adjusting the demand forecast in Oracle Demand Management Cloud, based on new information available between S&OP cycles. With this release, you can view S&OP plan measures while using Demand Management by exporting measures from Oracle Sales and Operations Planning Cloud to Demand Management. This visibility allows demand planners to make tactical adjustments to plans while respecting decisions made during the S&OP process. COMPARE PLAN VERSUS ACTUALS IN REAL TIME Sharing key information from planning applications, combined with real-time execution data, such as orders, with a wider audience is critical to escalate and solve business issues. With this release, you can create and run your own reports using Oracle Transactional Business Intelligence with additional measures that reflect the current consensus forecast. Additionally, this data can be combined with the sales data from Oracle Order Management Cloud. This allows planners and executives to monitor the plan against the actual realized orders without data latency. Planners and executives can also make expedient decisions that do not have to wait for the next run of the planning processes to refresh the data. 12
SUPPLY PLANNING PLAN FOR CONFIGURED PRODUCT FULFILLMENT USING DROP SHIP Configure to Order (CTO) manufacturing processes have grown in complexity leading to many visibility and planning challenges. For example, contract manufacturers can fulfill CTO orders by shipping directly to the customers. Usually, the contract manufacturer requires visibility into the expected demand not only of the model, but also the options. This enables contract manufacturers to effectively fulfill their obligations related to lead times. This set of Oracle Supply Planning Cloud enhancements in conjunction with the Oracle Demand Management Cloud enhancements allows you to: Consume the forecasted demand for the options with the sales orders that specify the same option (explode then consume) Plan for the net expected demand of the model and options that will be shipped directly from the contract manufacturer to the customer Collaborate with the contract manufacturer on the model and option order forecasts using Oracle Supply Chain Collaboration Cloud These improvements enhance customer satisfaction by allowing you to offer extensively customizable products, while still fulfilling orders at the intended service levels with minimal impact to the inventory holding costs, and utilizing the most efficient fulfillment method. PLANNING CENTRAL PLAN FOR CONFIGURED PRODUCT FULFILLMENT USING DROP SHIP Configure to Order (CTO) manufacturing processes have grown in complexity leading to many visibility and planning challenges. For example, contract manufacturers can fulfill CTO orders by shipping directly to the customers. Usually, the contract manufacturer requires visibility into the expected demand not only of the model, but also the options. This enables contract manufacturers to effectively fulfill their obligations related to lead times. This set of Oracle Planning Central Cloud enhancements in conjunction with the Oracle Demand Management Cloud enhancements allows you to: Consume the forecasted demand for the options with the sales orders that specify the same option (explode then consume) Plan for the net expected demand of the model and options that will be shipped directly from the contract manufacturer to the customer Collaborate with the contract manufacturer on the model and option order forecasts using Oracle Supply Chain Collaboration Cloud These improvements enhance customer satisfaction by allowing you to offer extensively customizable products, while still fulfilling orders at the intended service levels with minimal impact to the inventory holding costs, and utilizing the most efficient fulfillment method. 13
UPDATE 17B REVISION HISTORY This document will continue to evolve as existing sections change and new information is added. All updates appear in the following table: Date Feature Notes 07 APR 2017 Created initial document. OVERVIEW This guide outlines the information you need to know about new or improved functionality in this update. DISCLAIMER The information contained in this document may include statements about Oracle s product development plans. Many factors can materially affect Oracle s product development plans and the nature and timing of future product releases. Accordingly, this Information is provided to you solely for information only, is not a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality, and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions. The development, release, and timing of any features or functionality described remains at the sole discretion of Oracle. This information may not be incorporated into any contractual agreement with Oracle or its subsidiaries or affiliates. Oracle specifically disclaims any liability with respect to this information. Refer to the Legal Notices and Terms of Use for further information. DEMAND MANAGEMENT Oracle Demand Management Cloud is a modern and comprehensive supply chain planning application for accurately sensing, predicting, and shaping customer demand for a broad range of industries. Demand Management is especially well-suited to companies that need to analyze and segment market demand, manage demand variability, handle frequent product introductions, or plan demand of configured products and options. Demand Management s comprehensive analytics, social collaboration and mobility features enhance your insights and promote teamwork, wherever you are in the office or on the move. Part of a broader Oracle Supply Chain Management (SCM) Cloud, Demand Management seamlessly integrates with: Oracle Supply Planning Cloud Oracle Sales and Operations Planning Cloud Oracle Planning Central Cloud Oracle Order Management Cloud Other Oracle Supply Chain Management Cloud services 14
SENSE DEMAND Demand Management brings multiple demand signals together to help you better understand demand for your products, channels, segments and anticipate customer needs. Built-in analytics reveal demand patterns and identify changes in real time so you can respond to them. MANAGE MULTIPLE DEMAND SIGNALS To better understand customer demand, you need to capture, align, and analyze both internal business data and external market information. You can use Demand Management to: Bring in a variety of internal (for example, shipments and bookings) and external (for example, market and syndicated data) demand signals relevant for your industry. The internal demand signals can be collected automatically from Oracle SCM Cloud or imported by way of flat files into predefined measures. The external demand signals can also be imported by way of flat files into custom measures with desired dimensionality. View and compare the demand signals in a consistent unit or currency of your choice at any level in the hierarchy. Various internal sales and marketing stakeholders, as well as your key customers, can access the same information that is tailored to their specific needs. Understand demand trends and relative contribution of various demand signals to enable revenue growth programs for specific products or product categories. Monitor changes in demand signals real time via exceptions and thresholds to understand recent customer behavior and initiate suitable remedial action. This allows you to get better and timelier visibility to changes in customer demand. ANALYZE DEMAND SIGNALS To gain deeper insights into demand trends for specific products or customer segments, you need comprehensive analytics and visualization tools, which can summarize business conditions, uncover in-depth trends, and help you conduct further analysis to see which segments are out-performing or under-performing. You can use Demand Management s analytics capability to quickly analyze demand signals and also get indepth views using a personalized user interface, which includes: Summary analysis A row of infotiles in the plan summary view provides an at-a-glance summary of the health of your demand plan and one-click access to charts and graphs that can help you uncover demand insights. For example, forecast comparison highlights gaps between shipments and sales forecasts, forecast MAPE (mean absolute percentage error) identifies areas of poor accuracy, and history comparison identifies disconnects between bookings and shipments. You can easily configure these infotiles, charts, and graphs to get a focused view with your selection of measures, performance indicators, and hierarchy levels. To investigate further, you can navigate from the summary charts into multidimensional analysis workbenches. Multidimensional analysis workbench You can readily use preconfigured pivot tables and graphs with common hierarchies, measures, exceptions, and calculations to analyze large data sets. You can slice and dice the data further to look into details and reveal patterns, for example, identifying which SKUs have significant demand changes year-over-year or week-to-week. You can also compare demand signals to better understand customer behaviors, for example, if bookings history is slightly ahead of shipments in recent weeks, that might indicate a demand uptrend. This analysis is possible by way of preconfigured worksheets, for example, history analysis, forecast analyses, statistical analysis, and so on. To personalize the workbench to meet your needs, you can: 15
Create new worksheets or reuse existing ones. Include data visualization tools, such as tree maps, charts, and line and bar graphs in these worksheets to facilitate easy problem identification. Customize measures, calculations, and exceptions to support your analysis. Configure navigation between charts and graphs to guide navigation and speed up identification of detailed problem areas. Assign user access permissions and maintain data security, so users can only see or edit data that matches their privileges. With the aid of the intuitive user interface, you can analyze demand signals quickly and proactively anticipate customer needs. CAPTURE BUSINESS INSIGHTS Your internal organization is also an invaluable source of demand information and their inputs need to be captured alongside all demand signals. Using Demand Management: Sales, marketing and other stakeholders can manually enter or upload their forecast. They can also enter forecast on the go, using mobile devices. Such input can be provided at any level in the hierarchy. As an example, sales can enter a forecast at customer account and item level, while marketing can enter data at product category and month level. Demand planners can start a social conversation with select focus groups to get qualitative input in a specific business context. Participants in demand management process can annotate the data with notes to document changes and assumptions. By capturing all interdepartmental forecasts, you get different perspectives of the forecasts, which helps drive a collaborative demand planning process. PREDICT DEMAND Demand Management accurately predicts your product s forecast by incorporating cause-and-effect correlation of demand to external and internal influencing factors and tribal business knowledge into history-based statistical forecasts. GENERATE STATISTICAL FORECASTS To anticipate customer demand, you need an automated way to generate baseline forecast, by leveraging multiple demand signals and using data-driven statistical algorithms. You can use Demand Management s forecasting engine to automatically detect demand patterns, trends, seasonality, and intermittence for every demand signal. The engine cleanses historical demand signals, such as shipments and bookings, to detect outliers and fills in missing data to minimize forecast error. The forecasting engine can predetermine the hierarchy levels where the forecast is statistically significant and can blend different forecast models to produce a more reliable statistical forecast. Forecast is regenerated for each product and location during every planning cycle and proactively adjusts to changing market conditions. You can also correlate forecast to a number of predictive causal factors and leading indicators, such as price, seasonality, holidays, and weather. You can also use other measures relevant for your business as causals and immediately see their impact on the forecast. 16
Although the statistical forecasting engine is self-maintained, with one-click, you can simulate changes and model forecasting scenarios. Using the sophisticated statistical engine, you can: Visualize constituents of the generated statistical forecast, including the baseline, trend, seasonality effects, and the contribution of individual causal factors. See how multiple forecast methods contributed to the blended forecast. You can get a detailed view of the combined forecast and the individual forecast method contributions side-by-side. Change forecast configurations to derive a statistical forecast more attuned to your needs. Vary the length of history used, change sensitivity of trend detection, and enable intermittency or select forecasting profiles based on shipments, bookings, or other measures. The simplicity of one-click statistical forecasting combined with the sophistication of predictive correlations offers you a good baseline demand plan. ESTABLISH A ROBUST DEMAND PLAN You need to enrich the data-driven statistical baseline forecast with business insights to make it more realistic. Using Demand Management, you can incorporate additional business insights by adjusting the forecast at any level in the hierarchy by way of tailored views of the multidimensional workbench. To facilitate quick edits, you can adjust forecast across various weeks as a percentage increase or decrease, value increase or decrease, or set to a particular value. You can also use custom exceptions, for example, forecast to order comparison to see instances where the forecast does not cover open orders, and make adjustments if required. The adjusted forecast can be intelligently disaggregated to the required level using historical or other proportions. The manually entered forecasts are monitored independently of the statistical forecasts to maintain data accuracy for measurement purposes. You can disable manual entry for the time periods where it is not advisable to change the forecasts. Besides the powerful editing capability, you can put qualitative comments in notes, to help other users understand your assumptions and reasons for the modifications. You can associate notes with a plan, data in a plan (such as items, organizations, or customers), or in a pivot table that contains planning combinations. With the ability to incorporate business insights, you can quickly develop a robust demand plan. FORECAST CONFIGURE-TO-ORDER PRODUCTS Forecasting for configure-to-order products is a two-level planning problem. That is, create forecast for pick-toorder (PTO) and assemble-to-order (ATO) models, and then derive demand for options or features of those models based on attach rates (known as planning percentages). With Demand Management, you can use existing attach rates specified in the bill of material, input the attach rates manually, or predict attach rates based on the historical trend in options mix. The models demand, option s model-dependent demand, and options independent demand are calculated when you generate the statistical forecast and when you run the plan on demand. You can have these demands calculated real time when you modify demand for base model or option demand and the attach rates. A special bill of material view shows the model, option classes, and options in a hierarchy, along with the associated forecast. By calculating detailed forecasts for your product mix and configurations, you can better understand customer preferences, and can better position finished good and options inventory to meet their needs. 17
ANALYZE FORECAST ACCURACY To achieve continuous improvements to your demand plan, you need to measure your forecasts versus actuals, and identify areas for improvement. Demand Management enables you to: Understand the plan s overall performance by measuring forecast accuracy in a variety of ways, including mean absolute percentage error (MAPE), mean absolute deviation (MAD), and forecast bias, measured for any of the demand signals. Get an aggregate understanding of the forecast accuracy for your previous plan, and then use visualization to drill down into product segments that would need additional attention and analysis. Determine root causes by reviewing the historical forecast error analysis (waterfall report), which shows how archived forecasts compare to actual results. The waterfall report focuses your attention on the categories and customers where accuracy is deteriorating and requires more investigation. Inspect the constituents of the forecast, and reconfigure forecast parameters to resolve issues. By measuring forecast accuracy, and resolving the root cause of accuracy issues, you can achieve higher forecast accuracy and as a result, higher customer service levels and lower inventory. SHAPE DEMAND To shape demand and profitably achieve revenue goals, you need to optimize new product introductions, simulate forecast scenarios, collaborate with stakeholders, and synchronize demand plans. FORECAST NEW PRODUCTS To execute your new product introduction strategy, you need the ability to accurately forecast new products and successfully plan the launch for chosen customer segments or geographies. Demand Management enables you to: Forecast new products either based on history of a like product or directly use the forecast of a like product. Make volume adjustments and specify the percentage of history or forecast needed to meet the product launch requirements. Customize your product launch by setting the launch date, the customer zones or specific customers, and product categories or specific items. Use the New Product Information summary analysis to gauge the contribution of new product revenue to the overall product portfolio and determine whether it meets corporate targets. Collaborate with marketing, reconcile with their forecasts, and incorporate any other executive feedback to fine-tune the new product forecast. By forecasting new products and collaborating with other stakeholders, you can better align inventory, launch products successfully, and prevent out of stocks situations. SIMULATE FORECAST SCENARIOS To understand the impact of business decisions, you need what-if analysis capability to see how influencing factors can have positive or negative impacts on demand and key business performance metrics, before finalizing forecast changes. 18
Demand Management enables you to: Run an unlimited number of forecast simulations to see impacts of changes in the price, running a marketing campaign, shift in weather, demand upside request, and so on. Simulate how changes to forecasting models and parameters have an immediate impact on the statistical forecast. Simulate changes to attach rates or change the independent option forecast for configure-to-order items. Simulate the impact of introducing new products in particular geographic areas. Perform side-by-side analysis of any number of scenarios, and see the impact on operational and financial objectives. By simulating and understanding the impact of your decisions, you can make confident decisions, and in turn, meet your business objectives. COLLABORATE ON AND SYNCHRONIZE DEMAND PLANS To have your organization march towards an agreed upon demand plan, you need the ability to reconcile forecasts, resolve issues by collaborating with stakeholders, and escalating issues to executives, as necessary. You can use Demand Management to facilitate reconciliation and agreement of cross-functional forecasts by using the following capabilities: Forecast reconciliation You can view a forecast captured from cross-functional teams at both aggregate and at the most detailed level (which has been automatically disaggregated). You can: Compare forecast at the plan level, and show the variance over a period of time or across different product segments. Leverage built-in exceptions, such as deviation between sales and final shipments forecast to reconcile the sales forecast with your estimates. Use custom exceptions and calculations to find more specific issues that fit your evaluation criteria. Use conditional formatting to identify which specific weeks or items have a problem at a glance. Forecast review and approval You might need to involve executives and other stakeholders to get additional guidance on strategic issues. The demand plan is readily available in Oracle Sales and Operations Planning Cloud s Demand Review section. Anyone who has access can indicate the action items and resolution expected from all stakeholders. You can make forecast adjustments based on executive decisions and approve the plan for use by supply planning. By collaborating with stakeholders from different departments and jointly resolving forecast discrepancies, you can achieve a one-number forecast and plan the inventory needed to meet customer demand. ADDITIONAL DEMAND MANAGEMENT ENHANCEMENTS INTEGRATE WITH SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT CLOUD AND OTHER SOURCES To reduce implementation timelines and reduce total cost of ownership, you can use prebuilt integration between Demand Management and other Oracle Supply Chain Management (SCM) Cloud applications. You can also incorporate data from other external data sources. Features in this release allow you to: Collect data from Oracle SCM Cloud products Prebuilt integration to seamlessly get product, customer, and other master data as well as sales orders into Demand Management. 19
Targeted data collection where data represents a business entity, or use net change data collection, importing data that changed since the last run. Filters to collect a subset of the data. For example, to reduce the number of items collected, you can filter according to the organizations being planned, or to reduce the order history collected, you can filter according to date ranges. Load data from external data sources - To improve decision making in Demand Management, you can import data from other sources by way of flat file integration. You can upload forecasts (if you use another system for forecasting), include sales forecasts, marketing forecasts, and external causal factors. You can also input customers, product hierarchies, shipments, and bookings. By integrating with Oracle SCM Cloud and external applications, you and other stakeholders have visibility to all required data in a single place to drive the business process, resulting in an accurate demand plan. SALES AND OPERATIONS PLANNING Oracle Sales and Operations Planning Cloud new in Release 13, provides a complete sales and operations planning (S&OP) solution for aligning organizations around an integrated operating plan to meet their strategic business goals. Using rich analytics and simulation capabilities, companies can monitor performance, simulate alternative what-if plans, and respond to changing market conditions. Sales and Operations Planning s powerful process support and collaboration capabilities enable companies to reach consensus across Sales, Marketing, Finance, and Operations. Sales and Operations Planning s integration with other Oracle Supply Chain Planning Cloud applications means that you can drive S&OP strategic decisions seamlessly into tactical planning and execution processes. ANALYZE TO MAKE BETTER DECISIONS Sales and Operations Planning offers comprehensive analytics capabilities, exception management features, Microsoft Excel integration, and waterfall analysis so that you can evaluate plan performance relative to your targets and how your plans are changing over time. ANALYZE PLAN PERFORMANCE WITH BEST PRACTICE S&OP DASHBOARDS, LAYOUTS, AND REPORTS S&OP is an executive management process requiring a big picture view of how a company is doing with respect to its business goals, and at the same time, requiring very detailed analysis in support of the process. Often S&OP software tools fail to cover the necessary spectrum from detailed analysis to high-level management reporting. As a result, you often must do extra work creating summary reports to present in S&OP review meetings. Oracle Sales and Operations Planning Cloud addresses this problem with a set of configurable S&OP graphical dashboards, layouts, and detailed reports supporting different levels of analysis during the S&OP process. For each of the five standard stages of S&OP -- product review, demand review, supply review, financial review, and executive review -- a summary dashboard is available with a ribbon of graphical KPI (Key Performance Indicator) charts across the top for monitoring performance. You can click on each KPI to see more detailed charts and tables, with links to even more detailed and editable pivot table reports. Example KPIs by review stage include: Product review: New Product Vitality, Days of Cover for End of Life Items Demand review: Unconstrained Plan versus Forecast, Stakeholder Forecast MAPE Supply review: Demand and Supply, Resource Overloading Financial review: Plan versus Forecast, Gross Margin Executive review: Revenue and Margin, Unmet Revenue 20
By combining rich summary graphical views with detailed analysis capabilities, you can monitor overall company performance, drill down into detail to understand the root cause of performance shortfalls, and change plans accordingly. CONFIGURE ANALYTICS TO MEET YOUR UNIQUE NEEDS While Sales and Operations Planning comes with numerous predefined reports and charts, most companies have unique needs that require analysis tailored to their businesses. With the Oracle solution you can make a variety of configurations, such as: Configure the layout of the screen to meet your preferences. You can identify multiple tables and charts to be displayed on the screen to facilitate holistic analysis. For example, you might configure the screen to analyze the material plan and the resource plan at the same time. Configure planning dimensions and hierarchies. You can quickly analyze large data sets through a common set of planning dimensions and hierarchies (such as product, customer, geography, zone, resources, supplier, and time) that support aggregate data analysis. Configure tables for multidimensional data analysis. You can analyze demand, inventory, and supply data measures in a single table to enable consistent views, comparison, and analysis, including alternate units of measure and monetary value. Configure measures. Sales and Operations Planning comes with numerous seeded measures (such as, consensus forecast, and projected available balance) to support S&OP best practices. Predefined measures are available in the subject areas of Demand Analytics and Forecasting, Inventory Analysis, Overall Plan Health, Manufacturing Efficiency, Supply Chain Costs, and Profitability. However, you can add custom measures to meet unique customer needs. You can configure goals, conditional formatting, and edit locking for all measures. Create new data analysis worksheets. You can create new worksheets using data visualization tools like treemaps, sunburst charts, line graphs, bar charts, and tables or use existing worksheets as the baseline to construct variants that meet specific planning needs. You can share these variants with other users or make them private. Configure guided navigation. You can define which worksheets you can drill down to with context from an existing worksheet or graph element (for example, right-clicking on a resource in the top overloaded resources chart and navigating to the resource plan table in order to diagnose the source of the problem). Configure favorite lists, saved query criteria, and analysis sets. You can reduce the time required to bring the right data into worksheets for further analysis. With the above configuration capabilities, you will have the ability to enable an S&OP process that is tailored to the unique needs of your organization. MANAGE BY EXCEPTION TO FOCUS ON WHAT S MOST IMPORTANT S&OP processes can often get bogged down by addressing too many issues in too much detail. To be most effective, you must focus on those issues that will yield the biggest bang for the buck. Management by exception is key to doing so. Sales and Operations Planning allows you to identify variances from performance thresholds so you can focus on the most important issues. You can define exception criteria for seeded measures and custom measures for graphic display. Exception detection is run immediately upon running a plan. Features include: Configure the reporting on exceptions. You can specify the hierarchy levels and the thresholds for reporting on exceptions. You can configure which users or roles receive notifications. Configure exception sets. Identify the exceptions that are important for your plan in an exception set. Only these exceptions are calculated and reported. 21