Demand management

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Demand management is a planning methodology used to forecast, plan for and manage the demand for products and services. This can be at macro-levels as in economics and at micro-levels within individual organizations. For example, at macro-levels, a government may influence interest rates to regulate financial demand. At the micro-level, a cellular service provider may provide free night and weekend use to reduce demand during peak hours.

Contents

Demand management has a defined set of processes, capabilities and recommended behaviors for companies that produce goods and services. Consumer electronics and goods companies often lead in the application of demand management practices to their demand chains; demand management outcomes are a reflection of policies and programs to influence demand as well as competition and options available to users and consumers. Effective demand management follows the concept of a "closed loop" where feedback from the results of the demand plans is fed back into the planning process to improve the predictability of outcomes. Many practices reflect elements of systems dynamics. Volatility is being recognized as significant an issue as the focus on variance of demand to plans and forecasts. [1]

In economics

Macroeconomics

In macroeconomics, demand management it is the art or science of controlling aggregate demand to avoid a recession.

Demand management at the macroeconomic level involves the use of discretionary policy and is inspired by Keynesian economics, though today elements of it are part of the economic mainstream. The underlying idea is for the government to use tools like interest rates, taxation, and public expenditure to change key economic decisions like consumption, investment, the balance of trade, and public sector borrowing resulting in an 'evening out' of the business cycle. Demand management was widely adopted in the 1950s to 1970s, and was for a time successful. It caused the stagflation of the 1970s, which is considered to have been precipitated by the supply shock caused by the 1973 oil crisis.

Theoretical criticisms of demand management are that it relies on a long-run Phillips Curve for which there is no evidence, and that it produces dynamic inconsistency and can therefore be non-credible.

Today, most governments relatively limit interventions in demand management to tackling short-term crises, and rely on policies like independent central banks and fiscal policy rules to prevent long-run economic disruption.

Natural resources and environment

In natural resources management and environmental policy more generally, demand management refers to policies to control consumer demand for environmentally sensitive or harmful goods such as water and energy. Within manufacturing firms the term is used to describe the activities of demand forecasting, planning, and order fulfillment. In the environmental context demand management is increasingly taken seriously to reduce the economy's throughput of scarce resources for which market pricing does not reflect true costs. Examples include metering of municipal water, and carbon taxes on gasoline.

Welfare economics

Demand management in economics focuses on the optimal allocation resources to affect social welfare.

Welfare economics uses the perspective and techniques of microeconomics, but they can be aggregated to make macroeconomic conclusions. Because different "optimal" states may exist in an economy in terms of the allocation of resources, welfare economics seeks the state that will create the highest overall level of social welfare.

Some people object to the idea of wealth redistribution because it flies in the face of pure capitalist ideals, but economists suggest that greater states of overall social good might be achieved by redistributing incomes in the economy. [2]

Because welfare economics follows the techniques of microeconomics, where demand planning is part of the process especially the redistribution of the funds through government taxes, fees and royalties to programs for societal good, such as roads, services, income support and agriculture support programs.

Demand management as a business process

Demand management is both a stand-alone process and one that is integrated into sales and operations planning (S&OP) or integrated business planning (IBP).

Demand management in its most effective form has a broad definition well beyond just developing a "forecast" based on history supplemented by "market" or customer intelligence, and often left to the supply chain organization to interpret. Philip Kotler notes two key points: 1. Demand management is the responsibility of the marketing organization (in his definition sales is subset of marketing); 2. The demand "forecast" is the result of planned marketing efforts. Those planned efforts, not only should focus on stimulating demand, more importantly influencing demand so that a business's objectives are achieved.

The components of effective demand management, identified by George Palmatier and Colleen Crum, are: 1. planning demand; 2. communicating demand; 3. influencing demand and 4. prioritizing demand. [3]

Demand control

Demand control is a principle of the overarching demand management process found in most manufacturing businesses. Demand control focuses on alignment of supply and demand when there is a sudden, unexpected shift in the demand plan. The shifts can occur when near-term demand becomes greater than supply, or when actual orders are less than the established demand plan. The result can lead to reactive decisions, which can have a negative impact of workloads, costs, and customer satisfaction.

Demand control creates synchronization across the sales, demand planning, and supply planning functions. Unlike typical monthly demand or supply planning reviews, demand control reviews occur at more frequent intervals (daily or weekly), which allows the organization to respond quickly and proactively to possible demand or supply imbalances. [4]

Time fences

Demand Control Time Fences.jpg

The demand control process requires that all functions agree on time fences within the planning horizon, which should be no less than a rolling 24 months based on integrated business planning best practices. [5] A time fence is a decision point within a manufacturer's planning horizon. Typically, three established time fences exist within a company:

  • Future planning zone - Supply is managed to match demand
  • Trading zone - Demand is managed to match supply for production
  • Firm zone - Demand is managed to match supply for procurement

Demand controller

A demand controller is established when a company implements a demand control process. Unlike a demand planner who focuses on long-term order management, [6] the demand controller is responsible for short-term order management, focusing specifically when demand exceeds supply or demand appears to be less than planned, and engages sales management in both situations. The demand controller works across multiple functions involved in the supply and demand processes, including demand planning, supply planning, sales, and marketing.

Elements

Planning demand involves a full multiple-view process or work flow; including statistical forecast as a baseline from clean "demand history" [not shipments], using the most effective statistical models. Kai Trepte developed the Microsoft Excel add-in "Forecast X" to provide practitioners with a workstation capability to assess the best matches between data and forecast models. Increasingly "predictive forecasts" have moved from a limited use to becoming best practice for more companies. Predictive forecasts use simulation of potential future outcomes and their probabilities rather than history to form the basis for long range (5-10+ years) demand plans. Baseline forecasts are typically developed by demand planners and analysts, who may be regional or centrally located. They work under the guidance of the demand manager. Baseline forecasts are communicated to members of the demand management team. This usually includes regional sales leaders, market managers, and product managers. The team may include customer service leads who manager orders under service agreements with customers and have direct insight into customer demand. For major retailers this is often point of sale data provided to suppliers. [7] [8]

Information technology

Information technology and information system demand managers seek to understand in advance how to best meet the needs and expectations of customers, clients, partners, and enablers. Thus, proper forecast and sizing of demand is required in order to deliver a stable and effective technology environment.[ citation needed ]

Demand management as part of project portfolio management

Romano, Grimaldi, and Colasuonno consider demand management as a harvesting activity, governed by a strategy that gives portfolios direction and a selection model intended to select the best beneficial set of activities aligned with strategic objectives. They suggest component-oriented demand management be approached proactively, with a strategy driven by business objectives, and responsibility of top management representing the chosen strategic direction. [9]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Supply chain management</span> Management of the flow of goods and services

In commerce, supply chain management (SCM) deals with a system of procurement, operations management, logistics and marketing channels, through which raw materials can be developed into finished products and delivered to their end customers. A more narrow definition of supply chain management is the "design, planning, execution, control, and monitoring of supply chain activities with the objective of creating net value, building a competitive infrastructure, leveraging worldwide logistics, synchronising supply with demand and measuring performance globally". This can include the movement and storage of raw materials, work-in-process inventory, finished goods, and end to end order fulfilment from the point of origin to the point of consumption. Interconnected, interrelated or interlinked networks, channels and node businesses combine in the provision of products and services required by end customers in a supply chain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Logistics</span> Management of the flow of resources

Logistics is the part of supply chain management that deals with the efficient forward and reverse flow of goods, services, and related information from the point of origin to the point of consumption according to the needs of customers. Logistics management is a component that holds the supply chain together. The resources managed in logistics may include tangible goods such as materials, equipment, and supplies, as well as food and other consumable items.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Supply chain</span> System involved in supplying a product or service to a consumer

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Managerial economics is a branch of economics involving the application of economic methods in the organizational decision-making process. Economics is the study of the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Managerial economics involves the use of economic theories and principles to make decisions regarding the allocation of scarce resources. It guides managers in making decisions relating to the company's customers, competitors, suppliers, and internal operations.

Articles in economics journals are usually classified according to JEL classification codes, which derive from the Journal of Economic Literature. The JEL is published quarterly by the American Economic Association (AEA) and contains survey articles and information on recently published books and dissertations. The AEA maintains EconLit, a searchable data base of citations for articles, books, reviews, dissertations, and working papers classified by JEL codes for the years from 1969. A recent addition to EconLit is indexing of economics journal articles from 1886 to 1968 parallel to the print series Index of Economic Articles.

Inventory control or stock control can be broadly defined as "the activity of checking a shop's stock". It is the process of ensuring that the right amount of supply is available within a business. However, a more focused definition takes into account the more science-based, methodical practice of not only verifying a business's inventory but also maximising the amount of profit from the least amount of inventory investment without affecting customer satisfaction. Other facets of inventory control include forecasting future demand, supply chain management, production control, financial flexibility, purchasing data, loss prevention and turnover, and customer satisfaction.

The term demand chain has been used in a business and management context as contrasting terminology alongside, or in place of, "supply chain". Madhani suggests that the demand chain "comprises all the demand processes necessary to understand, create, and stimulate customer demand". Cranfield School of Management academic Martin Christopher has suggested that "ideally the supply chain should become a demand chain", explaining that ideally all product logistics and processing should occur "in response to a known customer requirement".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bullwhip effect</span> Form of distribution marketing

The bullwhip effect is a supply chain phenomenon where orders to suppliers tend to have a larger variability than sales to buyers, which results in an amplified demand variability upstream. In part, this results in increasing swings in inventory in response to shifts in consumer demand as one moves further up the supply chain. The concept first appeared in Jay Forrester's Industrial Dynamics (1961) and thus it is also known as the Forrester effect. It has been described as "the observed propensity for material orders to be more variable than demand signals and for this variability to increase the further upstream a company is in a supply chain". Research at Stanford University helped incorporate the concept into supply chain vernacular using a story about Volvo. Suffering a glut in green cars, sales and marketing developed a program to sell the excess inventory. While successful in generating the desired market pull, manufacturing did not know about the promotional plans. Instead, they read the increase in sales as an indication of growing demand for green cars and ramped up production.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Demand-chain management</span> Management of relationships between suppliers &customers to deliver best value to customer

Demand-chain management (DCM) is the management of relationships between suppliers and customers to deliver the best value to the customer at the least cost to the demand chain as a whole. Demand-chain management is similar to supply-chain management but with special regard to the customers.

Collaborative Planning, Forecasting and Replenishment (CPFR) is an approach to the supply chain process which focuses on joint practices. This is done through cooperative management of inventory through joint visibility and replenishment of products throughout the supply chain. Information shared between suppliers and retailers aids in satisfying customer demands through a system of shared information. This allows for continuous updating of inventory and upcoming requirements, making the end-to-end supply chain process more efficient. Efficiency is created through the decrease expenditures for merchandising, inventory, logistics, and transportation across all trading partners.

Business economics is a field in applied economics which uses economic theory and quantitative methods to analyze business enterprises and the factors contributing to the diversity of organizational structures and the relationships of firms with labour, capital and product markets. A professional focus of the journal Business Economics has been expressed as providing "practical information for people who apply economics in their jobs."

Revenue management is a discipline to maximize profit by optimizing rate (ADR) and occupancy (Occ). In its day to day application the maximization of RevPAR is paramount.

The Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) model is a process reference model originally developed and endorsed by the Supply Chain Council, now a part of ASCM, as the cross-industry, standard diagnostic tool for supply chain management. The SCOR model describes the business activities associated with satisfying a customer's demand, which include plan, source, make, deliver, return, and enable. Use of the model includes analyzing the current state of a company's processes and goals, quantifying operational performance, and comparing company performance to benchmark data. SCOR has developed a set of metrics for supply chain performance, and ASCM members have formed industry groups to collect best practices information that companies can use to elevate their supply chain models.

Supply-chain-management software (SCMS) is the software tools or modules used in executing supply chain transactions, managing supplier relationships and controlling associated business processes. Supply chain management maximizes the efficiency of business activities that include planning and management of the entire supply chain. It helps businesses in product development, sourcing, production, and logistics by automating operations. In this way, it increases the physical flow of business as well as informative flow. The entire business benefits with higher performance, greater cost-efficiency, and thus increased supply chain efficiency.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sales and operations planning</span> Integrated business management process

Sales and operations planning (S&OP) is an integrated business management process through which the executive/leadership team continually achieves focus, alignment, and synchronization among all organization functions. The S&OP process includes an updated forecast that leads to a sales plan, production plan, inventory plan, customer lead time (backlog) plan, new product development plan, strategic initiative plan, and resulting financial plan. Plan frequency and planning horizon depend on the specifics of the context. Short product life cycles and high demand volatility require a tighter S&OP than steadily consumed products. Done well, the S&OP process also enables effective supply chain management.

Customer demand planning (CDP) is a business-planning process that enables sales teams to develop demand forecasts as input to service-planning processes, production, inventory planning and revenue planning.

Demand forecasting is the prediction of the quantity of goods and services that will be demanded by consumers at a future point in time. More specifically, the methods of demand forecasting entail using predictive analytics to estimate customer demand in consideration of key economic conditions. This is an important tool in optimizing business profitability through efficient supply chain management. Demand forecasting methods are divided into two major categories, qualitative and quantitative methods. Qualitative methods are based on expert opinion and information gathered from the field. This method is mostly used in situations when there is minimal data available for analysis such as when a business or product has recently been introduced to the market. Quantitative methods, however, use available data, and analytical tools in order to produce predictions. Demand forecasting may be used in resource allocation, inventory management, assessing future capacity requirements, or making decisions on whether to enter a new market.

Integrated business planning (IBP) is a process for translating desired business outcomes into financial and operational resource requirements, with the overarching objective of maximizing profit and / or cash flow, while cutting down risk. The business outcomes, on which IBP processes focus, can be expressed in terms of the achievement of the following types of targets:

Petrolsoft Corporation (1989–2000) was a supply chain management software company with a focus on the petroleum industry. Petrolsoft Corporation was founded at Stanford University in 1989 by Bill Miller and David Gamboa as Petrolsoft Software Group. It was later incorporated in 1992. Petrolsoft introduced demand-driven inventory management to the petroleum industry.

In commerce, global supply-chain management is defined as the distribution of goods and services throughout a trans-national companies' global network to maximize profit and minimize waste. Essentially, global supply chain-management is the same as supply-chain management, but it focuses on companies and organizations that are trans-national.

References

  1. ↑ Kamal, John. "Best Practice Demand Planning Meets Unprecedented Demand Volatility". Supply Demand Chain Executive.
  2. ↑ "Welfare Economics", Investopedia
  3. ↑ Crum, Colleen; Palmatier, George (2003). Demand Management Best Practices . Boca Raton, Florida: J Ross Publishing. p.  11. ISBN   1932159010.
  4. ↑ Holmes, David; Ferguson, Todd; Reiher, Timm. "Demand Control: An Often Missing Link in a Demand Management Process". Archived from the original on 2018-10-18. Retrieved 2016-04-20.
  5. ↑ Palmatier, George; Crum, Colleen (2013). The Transition from Sales and Operations Planning to Integrated Business Planning. Indianapolis, Indiana: Dog Ear Publishing. ISBN   1457518252.
  6. ↑ Bowman, Robert. "What It Takes to Be a Great Demand Planner". SupplyChainBrain.
  7. ↑ Crum, Colleen; Palmatier, George (2003). Demand Management Best Practices. Boca Raton, Florida: J Ross Publishing. ISBN   1932159010.
  8. ↑ Trepte, Kai. "Kai Trepte". LinkedIn.
  9. ↑ "Demand Management As A Critical Success Factor In Portfolio Management". www.pmi.org. Retrieved 2019-02-23.
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