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Enabling integrated business planning through big data analytics: a case study
on sales and operations planning

Article  in  International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management · November 2020

DOI: 10.1108/IJPDLM-05-2019-0156

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Enabling integrated business Integrated

business
planning through big data planning

analytics: a case study on sales and

operations planning
Alexander Schlegel, Hendrik Sebastian Birkel and Evi Hartmann Received 29 May 2019
Revised 6 October 2019
Chair of Supply Chain Management, 7 April 2020
Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Nuremberg, Germany 28 June 2020
1 October 2020
2 November 2020
Abstract Accepted 3 November 2020

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to investigate how big data analytics capabilities (BDAC) enable the
implementation of integrated business planning (IBP) – the advanced form of sales and operations planning
(S&OP) – by counteracting the increasing information processing requirements.
Design/methodology/approach – The research model is grounded in the organizational information
processing theory (OIPT). An embedded single case study on a multinational agrochemical company with
multiple geographically distinguished sub-units of analysis was conducted. Data were collected in workshops,
semistructured interviews as well as direct observations and enriched by secondary data from internal
company sources as well as publicly available sources.
Findings – The results show the relevancy of establishing BDAC within an organization to apply IBP by
providing empirical evidence of BDA solutions in S&OP. The study highlights how BDAC increase an
organization’s information processing capacity and consequently enable efficient and effective S&OP.
Practical guidance toward the development of tangible, human and intangible BDAC in a particular sequence
is given.
Originality/value – This study is the first theoretically grounded, empirical investigation of S&OP
implementation journeys under consideration of the impact of BDAC.
Keywords Integrated business planning, Sales and operations planning, Demand and supply planning, Big
data analytics capabilities, Case study, OIPT
Paper type Research paper

Introduction
Organizations face the challenge of steadily increasing dynamics in the business
environment, while trying to establish competitive advantages to achieve a sustainable
business model (Porter and Millar, 1985). Coping with these dynamics which are resulting in
increased uncertainty requires advanced and integrated planning activities within and
across organizations to be prepared for the future (Barratt and Barratt, 2011; Oliva and
Watson, 2011; Kaipia et al., 2017).
Although concepts relating to sales and operations planning (S&OP) have been
recognized for three decades in supply chain management (SCM) research (Ling and
Goddard, 1988; Wallace and Stahl, 1999), organizations are struggling to implement rigid and
mature S&OP forms. Therefore, they often remain in very basic stages. One advanced form of
S&OP is integrated business planning (IBP) which combines cross-functional planning
activities related to sales, operations, marketing, finance as well as the strategic direction of a
company with the integration across organizational boundaries toward customers and
suppliers (Pal Singh Toor and Dhir, 2011; Smith et al., 2011; Bower, 2012; Palmatier and Crum,
2013). The integration aspect of business planning is crucial, since only through intra and International Journal of Physical
interorganizational collaboration and information sharing all relevant knowledge about Distribution & Logistics
Management
future development can be brought together for making a decision (Barratt and Oliveira, © Emerald Publishing Limited
0960-0035
2001; Barratt and Barratt, 2011; Stank et al., 2012; Goh and Eldridge, 2015). DOI 10.1108/IJPDLM-05-2019-0156
IJPDLM Combining shared information from different sources means working with a large amount
of data. Data with high volume, velocity, variety, veracity and value are characterized
through these five V’s in academic research as big data (McAfee et al., 2012; Richey et al., 2016;
Waller and Fawcett, 2013; Wamba et al., 2015). While data-driven decision-making has been
prevalent in SCM research for some years (Chen et al., 2012; Roßmann et al., 2018; Zhu et al.,
2018), practitioners are still struggling with the implementation of big data analytics
capabilities (BDAC) in the context of S&OP to achieve stages of a higher maturity
(Schoenherr and Speier-Pero, 2015; Jonsson and Holmstr€om, 2016; Gunasekaran et al., 2017;
Zhu et al., 2018). Previous studies are highlighting that enhanced S&OP capabilities are
benefitting from BDAC. BDAC are necessary to be able to utilize the power of internal and
external data effectively for business decision-making with optimization and decision tools
(Schoenherr and Speier-Pero, 2015; Aryal et al., 2018).
In addition, empirical research on the implementation of advanced forms of S&OP is
lacking in general (Grimson and Pyke, 2007; Jonsson and Holmstr€om, 2016; Danese et al.,
2018; Kristensen and Jonsson, 2018). While the benefits of BDAC on decision-making in
S&OP have been mentioned by scholars (Schoenherr and Speier-Pero, 2015; Aryal et al., 2018),
the lack of empirical research on BDAC in S&OP results in unclarity about the utilization and
detailed performance outcomes of BDAC in S&OP. This study aims to close the identified
research gap of lacking extensive empirical research on advanced S&OP implementations
under consideration of BDAC by answering the following research questions:
RQ1. How can BDAC increase the efficiency and effectiveness of S&OP?
RQ2. How can big data analytics (BDA) solutions be utilized in S&OP?
To answer these questions, a case study on the implementation journey of S&OP in an
agrochemical multinational corporation (MNC) was conducted by utilizing organizational
information processing theory (OIPT) as a theoretical lens (Galbraith, 1974). OIPT postulates
that the performance of decision-making within organizations in uncertain and equivocal
environments is based on the fit of information processing requirements (IPR) with
information processing capacities (IPC) (Galbraith, 1974; Tushman and Nadler, 1978; Daft
and Lengel, 1986; Bensaou and Venkatraman, 1995). In the context of S&OP, the transition to
a more mature level of data analytics leads to a rising mass of data. As a consequence, IPR are
increasing. Accordingly, IPC need to be increased to achieve a fit. With the agrochemical
industry, the selected case study replies to the call of scholars for research on S&OP processes
in various contexts and industries (Grimson and Pyke, 2007; Singh, 2010; Iyengar and Gupta,
2013; Hulthen et al., 2016; N€aslund and Williamson, 2017).
The remaining part of this paper is divided into five sections, beginning with a literature
review to reveal the status quo of academic research on S&OP and BDA. Section three
describes the research methodology by depicting the complete process of sampling, data
gathering and analysis. Section four presents the findings of the study followed by section
five which includes a critical discussion. The last section contains the conclusion of the study
and an outlook for further S&OP research.

Literature review and theoretical framework

Integrated business planning and big data analytics
Comprehensive literature review studies on S&OP have been published recently (Thome
et al., 2012; Tuomikangas and Kaipia, 2014; Kristensen and Jonsson 2018). Hence, this section
will only focus on relevant publications of the two research streams S&OP and BDA instead
of providing a broad overview.
S&OP is defined as a business process which is “balancing supply and demand, and
aligning strategic and operational plans, on a tactical planning horizon” (Kristensen and
Jonsson, 2018, p. 21). Scholars describe different forms and maturity stages of S&OP Integrated
(Grimson and Pyke, 2007; Danese et al., 2018). IBP – as an advanced form of S&OP – is business
predominantly a practitioner’s phenomenon. Consequently, studies on this concept are
mainly published in practitioners’ journals, consultancy reports or online blogs. Thus,
planning
academic definitions do not exist currently (Pal Singh Toor and Dhir, 2011; Smith et al., 2011;
Bower, 2012). This study defines IBP as an organization’s unique, cross-functional business
planning process, which results in a common set of tactical and strategic goals for profit
optimization with the involvement of customers and suppliers.
The main difference between IBP and less advanced forms of S&OP is that standard
S&OP originates from supply chain (SC) and therefore primarily possesses the supply–
demand balancing character. In contrast to the intra and interorganizational integration
characteristic of IBP, standard S&OP often falls short in true cross-functional
implementation supported by top management (Ambrose et al., 2018; Piercy and Ellinger,
2015). Therefore, SC collaboration from two perspectives is of utmost importance for IBP:
first, intraorganizational collaboration enforced by cross-functional teams to break functional
silos and ensure optimization toward one common goal instead of several individual,
conflicting targets (Oliva and Watson, 2011; Thome et al., 2012) and second,
interorganizational collaboration with suppliers and customers as an instrument for
reducing supply and demand uncertainty (Cachon and Fisher, 2000; Kouvelis and Milner,
2002; de Leeuw and Fransoo, 2009). IBP as an advanced form of S&OP is characterized by not
only a tactical but also a strategic timeframe. Therefore, IBP also covers long-term business
decisions such as asset investment by utilizing a strong profitability perspective. IBP is based
on a tremendous flow of information. Among others, it results from collaborative planning,
forecasting and replenishment (CPFR) and therefore requires certain capabilities to be
processed (Smith et al., 2011). By considering information from outside of the focal company
and extending the planning scope across several business functions, the volume, variety,
velocity, veracity and value (5V baseline) of data to identify influence factors for decision-
making increases significantly. SCM scholars reveal promising application areas for BDA in
SCM. According to recent studies, planning activities incorporating demand or supply
planning are one of the main application fields for BDA (Waller and Fawcett, 2013;
Schoenherr and Speier-Pero, 2015; Wang et al., 2016; Roßmann et al., 2018; Zhu et al., 2018). To
apply BDA, organizations need to establish corresponding capabilities. As highlighted by
Akter et al. (2016), the definition of the BDAC construct can have different perspectives such
as competitive advantage, alignment of strategy and capabilities or decision-making ability.
In the study at hand, BDAC are defined according to Gupta and George (2016) “as a firm’s
ability to assemble, integrate and deploy its big data-based resources.”
With increasing complexity in a SC, the number of sources for uncertainty is increasing
(Wilding, 1998). In this way, the measurement of uncertainty drivers is increasing the extent
of big data. This leads to more required BDAC in complex planning environments. Using big
data as decision-making support is enfolding its benefits especially in more complex
situations where tangible, human and intangible BDAC are required to process and
synthesize information from various sources leading to reduced demand and supply
uncertainty (Dubey et al., 2019, 2020; Srinivasan and Swink, 2018; Gupta and George, 2016;
Chen et al., 2015). In low uncertainty contexts, descriptive analytics and business intelligence
are usually sufficient to support decision-making (Janssen et al., 2017). Therefore, BDAC are
rather enabling more complex decision-making (Power, 2014). The complexity explains the
delineation of traditional business intelligence, which relies on data collection, extraction and
analysis of structured data from company internal databases and BDA, which is investigated
in this study (Chen et al., 2012). Environments with low planning complexity are
characterized by a low number of uncertainty sources. While low uncertainty can be
countered by increased transparency through traditional business intelligence, data-rich
IJPDLM environments with high planning complexity require more advanced analytics based on
structured and unstructured data with high volume, variety, velocity, veracity and value (5V
baseline) (Yu et al., 2018). Cao et al. (2015) have investigated that business analytics have a
direct and positive effect on an organization’s IPC and an indirect positive effect on decision-
making effectiveness. Their study highlights the relevancy of business analytics in relation to
decision-making in general but is not linked to the S&OP context. In addition, Zhu et al.
summarized the tremendous potential of BDAC applied to planning processes: “In particular,
improving analytics capability in the plan process might provide the greatest return on
investment because this [. . .] helps to improve analytics capabilities in other processes” (2018,
p. 60).
Although research on BDA is increasing, studies on its capabilities are limited (Mikalef
et al., 2018). Following these findings and considering the scarcity of empirical studies on
BDAC in specific contexts (Mikalef et al., 2019), more academic research on BDAC is needed.

Theoretical lens
According to OIPT, organizations are processing information under uncertain and equivocal
circumstances to make business decisions about, e.g. organizational design, allocation of
resources, relationships with business partners or sales and operations. Increases of IPR
without adjustments of an organizations’ IPC are causing a mismatch between IPR and IPC,
leading to ineffective decision-making. Consequently, organizations have the choice of
implementing information processing mechanisms (IPM), which increase IPC, or structural
mechanisms, which reduce IPR, to finally achieve a fit (Galbraith, 1974; Tushman and Nadler,
1978; Daft and Lengel, 1986; Bensaou and Venkatraman, 1995; Busse et al., 2017).
When organizations are transitioning from one S&OP maturity stage to another, increases
in the complexity of decision-making as well as increases in the number of involved
stakeholders can be observed (Grimson and Pyke, 2007; Goh and Eldridge, 2015). Thus, the
amount and complexity of information that needs to be processed increase, resulting in
higher IPR. In line with this, the capability of utilizing BDA represents an organization’s IPC
in the S&OP context. It needs to adhere to IPR to avoid a mismatch. Thereby, the study on
hand is based on the research model in Figure 1, which describes the constructs and their
relationships. It is grounded in OIPT and illustrates that an IBP implementation, as the

Figure 1.
Research model
most mature S&OP stage, increases an organization’s IPR driven by an environment with Integrated
high uncertainty and equivocality (Daft and Lengel, 1986; Busse et al., 2017). According to business
OIPT, uncertainty and equivocality are originating from the environment (i.e. supply and
demand uncertainty in the business environment), characteristics (i.e. S&OP implementation-
planning
related uncertainty and equivocality) and interdependence (i.e. cross-functionality related
uncertainty and equivocality) of the task (Tushman and Nadler, 1978; Bensaou and
Venkatraman, 1995; Grimson and Pyke, 2007; Dreyer et al., 2018). The S&OP implementation
construct, which is considered to be the task, is adapted from Grimson and Pyke (2007) and
Dreyer et al. (2018). At the same time, BDAC increase an organization’s IPC to result in a fit by
compensating increased IPR. The BDAC construct is adapted from Gupta and George (2016).
Ultimately the model outlines BDAC as an enabler for successful IBP implementations
measured by S&OP performance. The S&OP performance construct is adapted from Hulthen
et al. (2016) and splits into the two dimension effectiveness and efficiency, as stated in Table 1.
While effectiveness consists of factors, such as input data quality, forecast accuracy, resource
adherence, trade-off measures, plans adherence as well as actuals vs targets, efficiency
contains the factors people, process and organization.
Table 1 describes the construct definitions of this study.

Methodology
Research design
An embedded single case study approach has been chosen in this research due to several
reasons. First, empirical research on advanced forms of S&OP implementations is lacking
(Tuomikangas and Kaipia, 2014; Kristensen and Jonsson 2018), wherefore previous studies
are calling for case study-based publications (Thome et al., 2012). Second, case study research
is applicable to investigations of contemporary and complex phenomena (Meredith, 1998),
which is the case when analyzing collaborative interactions between several involved parties.
Third, the chosen research design is especially suitable for answering “how” and “why”
questions as phrased in this investigation (Yin, 2014). Fourth, assessing the depth and width
of this study’s research objective (Eisenhardt, 1989; Seuring, 2008), there is a stronger focus
on understanding the depth of BDAC in S&OP, which is favored by a single case approach.
The studied context requires a deep understanding of industry-specific business planning
processes and behaviors. The focus on a single case allows building this detailed knowledge.

Construct Definition Source

S&OP Implementation of the mechanisms meetings and Grimson and Pyke (2007),
implementation collaboration, organization, performance measurements Dreyer et al. (2018)
and IT to achieve a unique, cross-functional business
planning process which results in a common set of tactical
and strategic goals for profit optimization with the
involvement of customers and suppliers
S&OP performance Measurement for the efficiency and effectiveness of S&OP. Hulthen et al. (2016)
S&OP effectiveness measures the influence of S&OP on
corporate effectiveness and efficiency. S&OP efficiency
measures how well the S&OP process is managed
BDAC Capability based on tangible, human and intangible Gupta and George (2016)
resources which an organization need to possess to reap
benefits from big data
BDA solutions in Solutions and applications which use big data to assist Table 1.
S&OP decision-making Construct definitions
IJPDLM Finally, the availability of companies which represent the required maturity in S&OP and are
willing to share in-depth information for academia is low. Therefore, it is very difficult to
extend the number of case companies and apply a multiple case study approach for the
juvenile research stream on BDAC in S&OP.
The research design of the case study has been evaluated for transferability, truth-value
and traceability according to da Mota Pedrosa et al. (2012), as outlined in Table 2.
To ensure reliability of this study, the conducted research steps are rigorously described
in the following sections. A case study protocol, detailed transcripts of interviews and notes
from observations and workshops are available, so that the study could be repeated but
would exceed the length of this manuscript. Due to the applied single case research
methodology, the validity of this study is limited to the used constructs and the developed
relationship between them.

Sampling
The search for a purposeful case for this research was based on several factors, which can be
subsumed under two industry-related and two company-related sampling criteria. The
industry-related sampling criteria were (1) level of uncertainty in business planning and (2)
number of published S&OP and IBP studies. Additionally, company-related sampling criteria
were (3) experience with BDAC and advanced forms of S&OP and (4) willingness to share
experience on the transformation journey from standard S&OP to IBP with academia.
The selected agrochemical industry is characterized by high uncertainty in demand and
supply, which means high relevancy of planning activities. Demand uncertainties originate
from weather-related seasonality and outstanding registration approvals by authorities.
Supply uncertainties are based on the availability of raw materials and active ingredients as

Indicator Addressed in investigation

Transferability Theoretical aim of the Explain success of S&OP implementation with BDAC und
study application of OIPT
Unit of analysis MNC in agrochemical industry with 11 countries embedded as
sub-units of analysis
Justification of case Agrochemical industry is characterized by high uncertainty for
selection decision-making, and case company has deep and broad
knowledge on S&OP
Number of cases used Single case with 11 embedded sub-units of analysis
in study
Truth-value Coding Two coding cycles according to Salda~ na (2015)
Comparison Analysis within and across sub-units to search for patterns
Iteration Data gathering and analysis overlaps, first results were
considered for pending interviews, workshops and observations
during participation in IBP meetings
Refutation Raw data, results and conclusions of data analysis were reviewed
by and discussed with informants
Traceability Protocol or database Case study protocol
Data collection Semistructured interviews, workshops and direct observation of
guideline S&OP meetings
Informant selection Experts from different countries and different business functions
who are directly involved in S&OP meetings or responsible for
Table 2. preparation of decision-making
Quality criteria for case Number of informants 23
study-based research Source(s): Adapted from da Mota Pedrosa et al. (2012)
well as the high variety of country-specific end products driven by regulatory product Integrated
registrations. business
According to the recent literature reviews on S&OP studies, research on the agrochemical
industry has not yet been published (Tuomikangas and Kaipia, 2014; Kristensen and
planning
Jonsson, 2018). While empirical evidence from a case study on the chemical industry exists
(Ivert and Jonsson, 2010), the specific characteristics of agrochemistry related to seasonal
demand, cross-contamination risks in production or strict country-specific end product
regulations require a particular S&OP setup. A company within the agrochemical industry,
which shows a high maturity in S&OP, was selected to be able to provide experience in
advanced S&OP implementations. The 11 embedded sub-units of analysis of the selected
MNC are structured by sales countries since this represents the structuring of S&OP
processes within the case company. This structure emerges from the characteristic of the
analyzed industry related to higher demand than supply uncertainty. In total, the four
geographic regions North America, South America, Asia/Pacific and Europe/Middle East/
Africa were covered by 11 different countries: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada,
China, Germany, Great Britain, Russia, South Africa and the United States. The
manufacturing strategy in the agrochemical industry is make-to-stock based on monthly
updated forecasts with a time horizon of two to three years. Typically, multiple sales
countries share multiple sources of supply, leading to dependencies across countries. S&OP
is managed on a country level with executive review meetings on an aggregated regional
level. Figure A1 illustrates the SC of the case company.

Data collection
The collection of data started with four regional IBP workshops involving cross-functional,
regional representatives as participants (see Table 3). Each workshop with a duration of two
days resulted in a comprehensive understanding of the as-is situation of S&OP in the
corresponding geographic region. The content of the discussions was related to detailed
explanations of each step in the planning cycle, achievements of previous improvement
projects regarding S&OP and a collection of the current problems related to planning.
After finalizing the regional workshops, the data collection with individual informants
was started. The choice for semistructured interviews as main data collection methodology is
based on the work of Brinkmann and Kvale (2015). Semi-structured interviews allow on the
one hand to follow a predefined structure when guiding the interviewee through a dialogue.
On the other hand, they ensure a sufficient degree of freedom to capture unforeseeable
directions of the interviewees. The selection of interviewees was focusing on directly or
indirectly involved S&OP participants. Since the meetings are of cross-functional nature and
usually are conducted on a country level in the case study company, representatives from
controlling, SC, marketing and sales were interviewed.
In addition to standard questions, which were asked in all interviews, further questions
were discussed depending on the progress of each individual interview. All interviews had a
length of 60–90 minutes and were conducted in person (18 out of 23 interviews) or via
telephone in combination with video conference due to the distance between the geographical
locations of interviewer and interviewee (5 out of 23). The interviews were recorded whenever
possible. In interviews where recording was not permitted due to confidentiality concerns,
detailed notes were taken. After the interviews were conducted, the created case study
protocol was reviewed and validated by the informants to avoid misunderstandings and
ambiguities. In addition to collecting data from workshops and individual interviews,
participation in monthly S&OP/IBP meetings in five different countries (Brazil, Germany,
Great Britain, South Africa and the United States) ensured the possibility of directly
observing behavioral dynamics of all contributing individuals.
IJPDLM Additionally, data were collected via company internal documents (i.e. presentations,
guidebooks and data exports from company business warehouses) as well as publicly
available documents (i.e. consultancy reports and studies) and complemented with S&OP
research in academic journals.

Data analysis
The data analysis is based on a coding process, which consists of two cycles with two
iterations, respectively, (Corbin and Strauss, 2014; Yin, 2014; Salda~
na, 2015): one initial coding
cycle which is rather straightforward and a second cycle which is based on more advanced
methods, as outlined in Table 4. In coding cycle 1, descriptive coding was applied to the
results of the workshops as well as notes and transcripts of the individual interviews. In
coding cycle 2, pattern coding and then elaborative coding was applied to the basic categories
from the first coding cycle. The final deductive step of elaborative coding used theoretical
constructs from previous studies to align with the codes developed for this study (Grimson
and Pyke, 2007; Gupta and George, 2016; Hulthen et al., 2016; Dreyer et al., 2018).
To be able to analyze the constructs IPC, IPR, fit and performance according to OIPT, as
stated in Figure 1, the data have been assessed on a five-point scale as in previous OIPT-
based case study research (Foerstl et al., 2018). The scale for S&OP implementation, BDAC
and S&OP performance constructs is structured as follows: 1 5 very low, 2 5 low,
3 5 medium, 4 5 high and 5 5 very high. Uncertainty and equivocality, as driver for IPR,
were measured and analyzed through dimensions of the S&OP implementation, which are
increasing IPR during the transformation process. Since environmental uncertainty, which is
comprising complexity and dynamism, is difficult to quantify (Duncan, 1972; Busse et al.,
2017), the sample of the agrochemical industry reflects an uncertain environment in general.
Individual uncertainty per sub-unit of analysis was assessed for task characteristics and task
interdependence.
The scale for measuring the fit and comparing S&OP performance with S&OP perfExpected is
built on the following elements: 0 5 excellent, 1 5 good, 2 5 acceptable, 3 5 poor and 4 5 not
fitting. The fit represents the difference between S&OP implementation and BDAC. The fit has
been compared to the difference between S&OP performance and S&OP perfExpected. While the
actual performance is derived from the data collected for each sub-unit of analysis, the expected
performance equals the level of S&OP implementation. The underlying assumption according
to OIPT is that optimal performance could be achieved once IPR and IPC are available at an
equal level. To measure S&OP performance, the framework of Hulthen et al. (2016) was
adopted. The grading of the constructs has been conducted by the researchers according to
collected data and conducted observations. Afterwards, it was validated by the respective
interviewee. This approach has been used to quantify and structure the large amount of
information which has been gathered during the study. The next step of analysis consisted of
different comparisons. On the one side, factors and dimensions were compared within a sub-
unit of analysis. On the other side, comparisons across different sub-units were conducted. In
order to show whether the countries’ IPC and IPR levels are in accordance with S&OP maturity
stages, fuzzy C-means clustering was applied.
Finally, the results were shared with the case company to verify the correctness of the
researcher’s interpretation and the final conclusions. The iterative approach to share the raw
data, analysis results and final conclusions at different stages with the informants nurtured
the truth-value of the investigation.

Findings
The results of the data analysis are summarized in Table 5, which allows the comparison of
data within as well as across sub-units of analysis according to the underlying research
 Working
Integrated
Business experience Type of data business
Region Country functiona Informant Job titlea in years collection planning
Europe, Multiple SC, C W1 Regional – Workshop
Middle M and S representatives
East and from SC, C, M and
Africa S
E1 SC I1 Demand Planning 10–14 Personal interview
Manager
C I2 Controller 5–9 Personal interview
M I3 Marketing 5–9 Personal interview
Manager
S I4 Sales Excellence 10–14 Personal interview
Expert
E2 C I5 Controller 5–9 Personal interview
SC I6 Demand Planning 15–19 Personal interview
Manager
S I7 Head of Sales 15–19 Personal interview
E3 C I8 Business 10–14 Personal interview
Controller
SC I9 Demand Planning 10–14 Personal interview
Manager
E4 C I10 Head of 10–14 Personal interview
Controlling
SC I11 Head of Supply 10–14 Personal interview
Chain
E5 SC and C I12 Head of 10–14 Personal interview
Controlling and
Supply Chain
North Multiple SC, C W2 Regional – Workshop
America M and S representatives
from SC, C, M and
S
N1 SC I13 Team lead Supply 10–14 Personal interview
Chain
C I14 Controller 5–9 Personal interview
M I15 Marketing 5–9 Personal interview
Manager
N2 C I16 Head of 15–19 Telephone þ video
Controlling conference
South Multiple SC, C W3 Regional – Workshop
America M, S representatives
from SC, C, M and
S
S1 SC I17 Team lead Supply 10–14 Personal interview
Chain
C I18 Head of 10–14 Personal interview
Controlling
Table 3.
S2 SC and C I19 Controller and 15–19 Telephone þ video Overview of case
Demand Planner conference countries and
informants
(continued )
IJPDLM Working
Business experience Type of data
Region Country functiona Informant Job title a
in years collection

Asia/ Multiple SC, C W4 Regional – Workshop

Pacific M and S representatives
from SC, C, M and
S
A1 SC I20 Demand Planner 5–9 Telephone þ video
conference
C I21 Controller 5–9 Telephone þ video
conference
A2 SC and C I22 Controller and 15–19 Telephone þ video
Demand Planner conference
Multiple M I23 Vice President 15–19 Personal interview
Marketing
Table 3. Note(s): a SC 5 Supply Chain; C 5 Controlling; M 5 Marketing; S 5 Sales

model of this study (Figure 1). The relations between IPC, IPR, S&OP performance as well as
the fit were analyzed for each sub-unit.

S&OP performance S&OP performance

The results show that the fit between IPR and IPC correlates with S&OP perfExpected
(see Figure A2). The tendency across all sub-units is that IPR is higher than IPC. Figure 2
shows the analysis outcome across the sub-units of analysis which resulted in the
identification of three clusters based on fuzzy C-means algorithm. The degrees of cluster
memberships are listed in Table A1. The clusters are in accordance with the sub-units’ S&OP
maturity stages derived from the framework of Danese et al. (2018). While sub-units of
developed economies in cluster 3 are already implementing and optimizing IBP, other sub-
units of clusters 1 and 2, especially in emerging economies, are still working in less mature
S&OP stages. With one exception (S2), the data of all sub-units show the tendency that a high
fit of IPC and IPR (good or excellent) also means a low difference between S&OP performance
and S&OP perfExpected. In contrast, sub-units with a lower fit show a high difference between
performance and perfExpected. This confirms the underlying assumptions of the OIPT-
grounded research model, as stated in Figure 1 and leads to proposition P1a.
P1a. The greater the fit between IPR and IPC in the context of S&OP, the smaller the
deviation between the expected S&OP performance and the actual S&OP
performance.
Cluster 1 consists of the countries A2, E5 and S2 which operate in a low maturity stage. They
are characterized by a reactive way of S&OP and are typically facing low to medium
uncertainty. Decisions are primarily taken based on previous experience. Participation of
different departments in regular meetings is ensured while the contribution of participants is
focused on their responsibility silo. Cross-functional consequences of decisions are not fully
transparent. The planning process is based on manually prepared information without
utilization of standardized software. IPR of these sub-units are low/medium, and they are
close to the desired fit. An investment in higher BDAC, which leads to higher IPC, would only
marginally increase S&OP performance and result in slack afterwards.
Cluster 2 represents standard S&OP maturity in combination with a lack of BDAC. These
countries have established standard S&OP while some of them started the transition to IBP.
Coding
Integrated
cycle Iteration Data source Approach Result Example business
planning
1 1 Informants Descriptive Basic level (1) SC participation
W1, W2, W3 Coding categories (2) Forecast Manager
and W4 participation
Internal (3) Demand Planner
documents participation
(4) Sales rep
participation
(5) Sales Manager
participation
(6) Product Manager
participation
(7) Controller
participation
(8) Commercial
excellence
participation
(9) Country Head
participation
(10) Management
participation
(11) Customer
participation
(12) Supplier
participation
2 Informants: Descriptive Basic level (1) E1: Participation of
I1–I23 coding categories per registration
Internal country department
documents (2) E1: SC participation
(3) E1: Controlling
participation
(4) E2: SC participation
...
2 1 Results of Pattern Coding Distinct categories (1) SC participation
cycle 1 Miles and for whole case (2) Sales participation
Huberman (1994) (3) Registration
participation
(4) Marketing
participation
(5) Controlling
participation
(6) Leadership
participation
(7) Customer
participation
(8) Supplier
participation
2 Results of Elaborative Final factors and Involvement in cross-
iteration 1 of coding Auerbach dimensions functional/cross-
cycle 2 and Silverstein according to company planning
(2003) constructs from the meeting Table 4.
literature Coding procedure
 Table 5.

IPC, fit and

IJPDLM

performance
Assessment of IPR,
Country
Dimension Factor E1 E2 E3 E4 E5 N1 N2 S1 S2 A1 A2

IPR S&OP Meetings and Data access Very Very Very high High Low Very high Very Very high High Very high High
implementation collaboration high high high
related Organization Formalization Very Very Very high High Medium Very high Very High Very High High
uncertainty and high high high high
equivocality Empowerment High Very Very high Very high Low High High Very high Medium Medium Low
high
Performance Effectiveness High Very Very high Very high Medium Very high Very High Medium Very high High
measurement measurement high high
Information Ownership of Very Very High High Low Very high High Very high High High Medium
technology information high high
Information Very Very High Very high Low High High High Medium Medium High
sharing and high high
consolidation
Advancement in Very Very Very high Very high Very High Medium Very high Low Medium Very
technology for high high low low
decision-making
Cross- Meetings and Involvement in Very High High Very high High Very high Very Very high Medium Medium Medium
functionality collaboration cross-functional/ high high
related cross-company
uncertainty and planning
equivocality meetings
Span of High Very Very high High Medium Very high Very Medium Medium Very high Medium
collaboration high high
Performance Cross-functional Very Very High Very high Low High Very Very high Low High Low
measurement measurements high high high
Cross-functional Very High High High Low Very high Medium Very high Low Medium Low
accountability high
S&OP implementation Very Very Very high Very high Low Very high High Very high Medium High Medium
high high

(continued )
 Country
Dimension Factor E1 E2 E3 E4 E5 N1 N2 S1 S2 A1 A2

IPC BDAC Tangible Data Very Medium Low Low Medium Medium Medium High Medium Medium Low
high
Technology Very Very Medium Medium Very High Very Medium Low Low Low
high high low high
Basic resources High High Medium Medium Medium High Medium Medium Low Medium Medium
Human Managerial Very Medium Medium High Medium Medium High Medium Very Low High
Skills high low
Technical Skills High High Low Medium Very Low Very Medium Very Medium Low
low high low
Intangible Data-driven Very High High Medium Very Medium Medium High Very Medium Low
culture high low low
Organizational High High Medium Medium Very Medium High Medium High Medium Medium
learning low
BDAC Very High Medium Medium Low Medium High Medium Low Medium Medium
high
Fit Excellent Good Acceptable Acceptable Excellent Acceptable Excellent Acceptable Good Good Excellent
Performance S&OP S&OP Input data High High Medium Medium Very Low High High Very Medium Low
performance effectiveness quality low low
Forecast Medium High High High Medium Low Medium Medium Medium Low Low
accuracy
Resource High Medium Medium Medium Low Medium Medium Low Very Low Low
adherence low
Trade-off High High Low Very low Low Medium High Medium Low Medium Medium
measures
Plans adherence High Medium Medium Very high Low Low Medium Low Medium Low Medium
Actual vs target High High Medium Very high Medium Medium Medium Low Low Low High
S&OP Process High High High Low Low Low Medium Low Low Medium Medium
efficiency Organization High High Very high Very low Low Medium High Medium Medium Low Medium
People High Medium Low Very low Low Medium Medium Low Very Low Medium
low
S&OP performance High High Medium Medium Low Medium Medium Medium Low Low Medium
S&OP perfExpected Very Very Very high Very high Low Very high High Very high Medium High Medium
high high
S&OP performance vs IS&OP Good Good Acceptable Acceptable Excellent Acceptable Good Acceptable Good Acceptable Excellent
perfExpected
Integrated
planning
business

Table 5.
IJPDLM

Figure 2.
Fuzzy C-means
clusters for sub-units of
analysis

The business environment reflects high uncertainty and equivocality while the S&OP
maturity level and BDA solutions usage in S&OP is low to medium. Critical decisions and
their trade-off effects are prepared prior to the meetings. Structured data are available but
preparations require significant effort for participating functions, which is partially
supported by a variety of advanced planning, optimization, analytics, reporting or
customer relationship management software. The automation level of data processing is
considered technical bottleneck. The cluster consists of the countries A1, E3, E4, N1 and S1.
The mismatch between IPR and IPC of these countries is high. To achieve the S&OP
performance according to the implemented S&OP stage, higher BDAC would contribute
significantly. For countries which are at a medium S&OP stage, BDAC would enable the
transition into IBP as mentioned by cluster 2 informants (e.g. I10: “Right now our controllers
are not experienced in using these new tools. We would need to conduct some training to fully
utilize all functionalities”). In countries which have already started to implement IBP but have
not developed proper BDAC yet, the desired level of S&OP performance would benefit from
BDAC. As stated in Table 5, the sub-units of analysis with higher maturity stages are
representing higher IPR. Consequently, the second proposition is as follows:
P1b. Greater maturity in S&OP processes will lead to superior BDAC, thereby resulting
in enhanced S&OP performance.
This proposition is in line with available S&OP maturity models of previous studies (e.g.
Danese et al., 2018), which highlight the increasing impact of the mechanism information
technology (IT) on S&OP.
Cluster 3 represents the countries N2, E1 and E2 which are applying IBP successfully. All
three countries face high uncertainty and equivocality, have implemented IBP and are
therefore in an advanced S&OP maturity stage. While these countries show higher IPR than
IPC, they are closer to the fit than countries of cluster 2. Higher developed BDAC which are
facilitating S&OP performance can be observed in these countries. Further increases in
BDAC would only marginally increase S&OP performance, if at all.
A more precise evaluation of the effects of BDAC on S&OP performance can be outlined
by splitting the construct into the dimensions efficiency and effectiveness. Numerous
examples of S&OP efficiency improvements were observed in cluster 3. Process
improvements required a combination of tangible, human and intangible BDAC. Meeting
efficiency, in particular, directly benefitted after the majority of manual decision-making
procedures had been systematically automated by utilizing predictive and prescriptive
analytics. The consequence was that meetings were mainly related to exception-based
decision-making. Additionally, prescriptive analytics increased meeting efficiency even Integrated
further by calculating cross-functional conditions and influences of discussed decisions business
instantly during the meetings. While increases in managerial and technical skills related to
big data led to increased awareness of S&OP from executives, it indirectly resulted in
planning
increased participation in planning meetings. Employees with a data-driven mindset
represented higher skills and competencies and induced higher efficiencies for all remaining
meeting participants. Table A1 shows evidence in the data for improvements in S&OP
efficiency in the form of supportive quotes.
Different best-practices in cluster 3 countries were collected and offer transparency on
S&OP effectiveness improvements through the usage of BDAC. The input data quality was
improved significantly by two measures. First, the amount of manual data input was reduced
by processing data automatically and transferring data input activities from human to
system whenever it was possible by utilizing descriptive, predictive and prescriptive
analytics. Second, data entry related to planning information was assisted by automated
predefined plausibility checks to identify obvious input errors during the execution of the
input. Forecast accuracy improvements could be achieved by automating forecasting
activities partially through machine learning techniques. Accuracy increases through the
switch from manual to statistical forecasting were noticed, especially in the mid- to long-term
horizon through bias reduction. Furthermore, BDA contributed to achieving higher
integration since trade-off measures were embedded in software, which allowed users to
directly see cross-functional impacts of decisions. With this measure, no manual effort is
required by individuals to calculate the impact of what-if scenarios. By embedding all trade-
off effects and constraints into one IT system, profitability-based business planning could
finally be achieved. The data in Table 5, an analysis of the time span between first S&OP
activities and the execution of the study as well as the conducted observations of cluster 3
countries, which have already implemented IBP and developed BDAC, show that countries
with a high S&OP performance developed BDAC across all dimensions and did not only
focus on individual capabilities. This results in the following proposition (e.g. I4: “The
software is implemented and the users and management are trained but to sustain, we need to
ensure that decisions are always taken based on the data and not on politics or emotions”).
P1c. The longer a high level of S&OP performance is maintained, the higher the
relevancy of developing a mutual combination of tangible, human and
intangible BDAC.
This finding confirms the validity of the formative construct, which was conceptualized by
Gupta and George (2016). Table A3 shows evidence in the data of improvements in S&OP
effectiveness due to BDA in the form of supportive quotes.

Big data analytics capabilities

Different tangible, human and intangible BDAC have been reviewed in the case company.
The results of the analysis on BDAC are mainly driven by informants of cluster 3, which have
developed BDAC already intensively and could therefore share their experience. In addition,
informants of cluster 2 listed missing capabilities in their countries which are aimed to be
developed and are necessary for the transition from standard S&OP to IBP.
Related to tangible BDAC, it could be observed that highly mature countries implemented
IT solutions which combine advanced analytics with an advanced planning system. In
addition, new corporate technologies have been established to create a data lake for (1)
merging internal and external data and (2) combining structured with unstructured data. The
necessity of technology to combine multiple sources of data becomes obvious when analyzing
decision-making relevant data. Previous studies have already listed data sources or influence
IJPDLM factors for decision-making in SCM, especially demand planning (Hofmann and Rutschmann,
2018). However, within the specific context of the case study, all relevant S&OP decision-
making factors were collected and categorized. While, in the past, internal data were
primarily used for decision-making during S&OP, external data were added step-by-step.
The entirety of the relevant decision-making data confirmed the 5V baseline of BDA
representing high volume, variety, velocity, veracity and value. Case study countries that
considered additional data sources compared to traditional decision-making data grew in
data volume as well as data variety where sources with unstructured data from outside the
company had been incorporated. The velocity aspect of BDA was one of the first evolution
steps in the case company. Data which, in the past, had been considered monthly according to
the planning cycle were afterwards refreshed daily, hourly or even transmitted in real time,
which allowed faster reaction to changes and ignited the idea of event-based planning.
The development of tangible capabilities resulted in the establishment of a cross-
functional platform with all relevant data homogenized for decision-making in S&OP for each
business function’s perspective. Heterogenous data formats were combined from different
data sources and refreshed in multiple frequencies, ensuring the possibility of analyzing,
reporting and planning in one single system. It allowed the breakup of functional silos and
changed behavior from previous local optimization of individual business functions
according to their target setting to global optimization under consideration of corporate
business targets and its conflicting sub-targets on a functional level. The creation of an
optimal business plan is only possible by combining short-term aspects of sales with long-
term aspects of marketing as well as quantity aspects of SC with price and foreign exchange-
rate aspects of controlling.
When collecting developed capabilities, all informants reported examples for tangible
capabilities at first. In all case countries, the journey of capability development started with
the sequential enhancement of tangible capabilities, which afterwards were followed by
human and intangible capabilities (e.g. I2: “We noticed the biggest change since the technical
go-live of the software”). While a mutual combination of all BDAC is required, as stated in
P1c, organizations need to decide where to start with capability development. A comparison
of BDAC in Table 5 across the sub-units of analysis as well as an analysis on the time spans
between capability development, S&OP implementation and the study leads to the following
proposition:
P1d. The more tangible BDAC are developed within an organization, the faster
improvements in S&OP performance can be realized.
Human-related capabilities mainly focus on managerial and technical skills. Executives were
signing-off updated versions of the plans, which are created in S&OP cycles in the case
company. To finally use the results of BDA, it needs to be ensured that executives understand
and trust the developed insights. Informants mentioned IBP implementation barriers where
the automatically developed plan was questioned conceptually every time, which results in a
switch back to a more manual planning approach.
In addition to this, technical skills across all employees who are involved in S&OP need to
be developed. The job profile of a typical supply planner, demand planner, controller,
marketing manager or sales manager needs to be extended by a data science aspect which
became visible when comparing the profiles across case countries. This does not mean that
every job is now performed by a data scientist. Data scientists are important as experts for the
establishment of BDA, while each employee who is involved in S&OP needs to develop a
basic understanding. Without any technical skill, there will be no trust in the outcomes of
BDA, leading to resistance against a data-driven culture.
Intangible capabilities can be developed by fostering the intensity of organizational
learning and living a data-driven culture, which ensures the longevity of BDAC (Gupta and
George, 2016). Informants of cluster 2 countries claimed that without developing a supportive Integrated
culture for BDA initiatives, developments of tangible capabilities remain in the stage of pilot business
projects and will never become a real competitive advantage. Due to the repetitive character
of S&OP, a data-driven culture is inevitable to drive planning maturity. Otherwise, there is
planning
the risk that BDA solutions are technically available but not used. In correspondence to the
findings related to technical BDA skills, the intensity of organizational learning is seen as a
critical topic in the case company. The real implications of the absence of this capability can
only be measured in a longitudinal study. Beside the quick improvements from tangible
capabilities, the analysis of human and intangible capabilities across sub-units, as stated in
Table 5, are leading to the next proposition which is based on insights into cluster 3 countries
with high S&OP performance (e.g. I7: “Although we saw the huge improvements after
implementing the software, we need to notch up our performance because the real advantage
is in the mindset of our workforce. A tool can be bought by anyone”).
P1e. The more human and intangible BDAC are developed within an organization, the
more competitive and sustainable advantages can be realized from BDA in S&OP.
This finding specifies the results of previous research which claims that during BDA-enabled
transformations IT capabilities in general have an impact on the competitive advantage of an
organization (Wang et al., 2016).

Big data analytics solutions

Within the case company, especially cluster 3 provided numerous examples of BDA solutions
which allowed the organization to follow the integrated basic principles of IBP and act as
IPM. Applications of descriptive analytics have been observed in all steps during planning
cycles, from data preparation over the actual planning activity to the alignment meetings
with executives. Starting with the first step of data preparation, the integration of decision-
making relevant data has been fully automated in cluster 3 countries, while employees in
clusters 1 and 2 countries are involved in manual data preparation activities every month.
Further, automated dashboards visualize data from different perspectives during meetings
and therefore allow the analysts and moderators of S&OP meetings to answer questions of
executive participants immediately.
Predictive analytics is applied in the case company to automate forecasting of the elements
on the profit and loss statement (e.g. sales quantities, prices and profitability metrics) and SC
related information, such as production quantities or capacity requirements for production,
transportation and procurement. The solutions are based on different methods (e.g. machine
learning, deep learning and textual analytics) and combine internal data sources with sources
from SC partners as well as third-party data providers. Table 6 illustrates all data sources
which are used in cluster 3. From the perspective of S&OP performance, the implemented BDA
solutions mainly influence the forecast accuracy and the meeting efficiency. In particular, the
sub-units in cluster 3 have implemented cross-functional IBP software which fosters decision-
making in one single solution and enhances the underlying planning process. Financial
planning, data analytics, decision-making, reporting and highlighting trade-off effects are
available in one solution. BDA solutions encompassing industry-specific peculiarities such as
political sentiment analytics about product registration decisions, weather forecasts analytics,
satellite imagery analytics for short-term in-season demand anticipation, dynamic pricing and
margin analytics or profitability-based multi-echelon network optimizations for production and
transportation decisions are reviewed systematically to mitigate demand and supply
uncertainty. Participation in cross-functional meetings is not perceived as root cause for
high resource consumption due to preparation activities but rather as a possibility to discuss
and decide trade-offs and dilemma scenarios.
IJPDLM Data source Data owner IBP decision-making data

Internal data Supply chain department Packaging and labelling Information

Production capacity
Delivery reliability of logistics service provider
Bill of materials
Lead times
Inventory
Product segmentation
Availability of preproducts and components
Controlling department Financial targets (e.g. sales target and EBIT target)
Currency exchange rates
Cost of goods
Profit margins
Prices
Marketing department Market share
New product launches
New business strategy
Competitor data
Product segmentation
Sales department Customer agreements
Payment terms
Customer segmentation
EDI open orders
Customer prices
Supply chain partners Supplier Availability of raw material
Availability of preproducts and components
Customer Downstream channel inventory
POS data
Seasonality
End customer consumption (product on ground)
Third party data Data provider Special events (e.g. bank holiday, strikes, etc.)
Satellite data (farmland images)
Weather
Agrochemical/ agronomic expert studies
Web logs on product specific websites
Macro-economic indicator (oil price, industrial price
Table 6. index, consumer index, etc.)
IBP decision-making Sentiment data (social media and expert boards)
relevant data Search trends (online search engines)

The cross-sub-unit comparison of utilized data sources for S&OP results in the following
proposition (e.g. I3: “In the past we just focused on new product launches and POS data. But
since we incorporated satellite data, external indicators and search trends, our Forecast
Accuracy increased steadily”).
P2a. The more data sources are combined from inside the organization, SC partners and
third parties for predictive analytics, the higher the efficiency and effectiveness
of S&OP.
Prescriptive analytics solutions have been observed only in cluster 3 countries and in total
less frequently than applications of descriptive or predictive analytics. A few examples of
software solutions which assisted planners with decision recommendations were
implemented. Predictive analytics is used to automate forecasting while prescriptive
analytics assist planners and executives to highlight the cross-functional impact of taken
decisions. As stated in Table 5, high maturity countries with high performance, such as E1, E2 Integrated
or N2, reported very high technology-related, cross-functional requirements (i.e. data access business
or cross-functional measurements) while medium performance countries, such as E3, E4 or N1,
reported either very high data access or very high cross-functional measurements. Due to the
planning
fact that only cluster 3 countries reported on all three types of BDA solutions and
demonstrated formally linked cross-functional processes (e.g. I16: “We continue to check our
dashboards at the beginning of each meeting, but especially the reduced effort for manual
forecasting and the decision support is very appreciated by our controllers”), the next
proposition is as follows:
P2b. Greater maturity in S&OP processes requires more comprehensive BDA solutions
to improve S&OP performance.
Figure 3 embeds all propositions into the research model.

Discussion
The findings of the study have shown that to establish S&OP as a strategically important
process in a company’s planning landscape and to ensure the recognition of S&OP by
executives as IBP, the development of BDAC is inevitable. However, BDAC are not seen as a
pure mechanism to improve S&OP performance but rather as an enabler which allows
S&OP dimensions, such as meetings and collaboration, organization, performance
measurement and IT, to evolve according to the prevailing maturity stage. This view
corresponds to the S&OP study in a grocery retail context of Dreyer et al. (2018). They argue
that IT solutions alone are not a sufficient driver to stimulate S&OP maturation. The study
on hand confirms this finding but also argues vice versa that S&OP maturation reaches its
limits at advanced stages if BDAC are not developed. BDAC as an enabler is necessary for
IBP to have the ability to interact, while S&OP dimensions (e.g. meetings and collaboration)
are reflecting processes in which emergent S&OP properties arise (Someh et al., 2019).
Although previous studies have highlighted the relevancy of IT in general for advancing in
S&OP (Jonsson and Holmstr€om, 2016; Danese et al., 2018; Kristensen and Jonsson, 2018),
there was no emphasis on associated capabilities, which need to be developed. In naming

Figure 3.
Research model with
propositions
IJPDLM IT-related improvements, previous studies were mainly focusing on the tangible capability
of activating new software or incorporating additional data for decision-making. While this
is truly an important aspect, it misses the remaining human and intangible capabilities
which were incorporated in this study. According to this study’s findings, tangible
capabilities provide quick benefits for advanced forms of S&OP but do not ensure a
sustainable, competitive advantage on their own. Therefore, the main targets of S&OP
implementations, as internal cross-functional or external integration, were only achieved in
some countries of the case company by emphasizing the mutual development of all three
areas of BDAC. An example of this is the discussion in the literature on the importance of
investments in information systems, which often raise the comparison of the usage of
simple spreadsheets in early stages of S&OP against the utilization of advanced planning
systems in mature stages of S&OP (Thome et al., 2012). However, even advanced planning
systems are lacking in analytics or reporting functionalities for big data. Advanced
planning systems are only one example of a BDA solution which is required for high S&OP
maturity stages. The desire to have all S&OP-relevant data available and possess all BDA-
related capabilities is accompanied by the prerequisite of established collaboration
activities with SC partners to ensure trust and information sharing. The challenge of
conflicting targets between business functions within an organization as well as between
SC partners is one of the barriers for successful IBP implementations. Availability of data
and the concomitant possibility of creating intelligence from the data for optimization
purposes requires alignment on target setting. Within an organization, typical target
conflicts between SC and sales departments about inventory reduction vs sales increases
often result in individual optimization without any persuasion to change unless there is an
incentive of a superior cross-functional business target. Similar examples exist in
interorganizational relationships in the case study’s industry where full visibility of
inventory or forecasts within the whole SC results in a negotiation of inventory ownership
between customers and suppliers. Since capital costs fall to the inventory owner, full data
transparency would lead to inventory optimization for the whole SC but could lead to
increased costs for one of the SC partners. This means that, in spite of all of the advantages
of IBP for an organization, there might be disadvantages for SC partners, leading to
resistance to collaboration and information sharing.
Within the agrochemical industry, BDAC in the context of advanced forms of S&OP (i.e.
IBP) is leading to uncertainty reduction on both sides, supply and demand. Due to its
seasonality in demand, the focus in S&OP meetings is changing dynamically across the year
in Northern and Southern Hemisphere geographies. While in-season S&OP meetings are
characterized by operational and tactical aspects where BDA solutions are focusing on
visibility and trade-off decisions for customer service, finished good production and
transportation data, postseason S&OP meetings are characterized by tactical and strategic
aspects. In these cases, BDA solutions are focusing on active ingredients supply and demand
balancing, trend analysis, market intelligence or registration updates including not only
stochastic but also abrupt forms of demand and supply uncertainty.

Conclusion and future research

To implement IBP in an organization associated with effective and efficient decision-making,
BDAC are indispensable. Based on the study’s findings, it can be concluded that there is no
successful IBP implementation without BDAC. BDAC enable IBP implementations by
reducing uncertainties originating in the environment through increased IPC. Tangible
BDAC in particular are racing up a company’s IPC in an initial stage of S&OP implementation
while human and intangible BDAC ensure that capabilities are sustained and a competitive
advantage is achieved.
 The theoretical contribution of this investigation is the developed insights into the Integrated
intersection of the two research streams of S&OP and BDA through an empirical study. business
Pedroso et al. (2016) reviewed S&OP enablers in the literature. The extensive list of enablers,
which is based on numerous studies, does not contain BDAC. Therefore, the findings on hand
planning
extend the body of knowledge regarding enablers for implementations of advanced forms of
S&OP (i.e. IBP). Moreover, this study is complementary to latest studies on S&OP-related
mechanisms, which overlooked technological aspects and rather focused on processual,
organizational and behavioral aspects (Goh and Eldridge, 2019). Additionally, the study on
hand addresses the call of scholars for more empirical research on S&OP to complement the
already available theoretical S&OP frameworks and maturity models with insights into
practice in specific contexts (Jonsson and Holmstr€om, 2016).
The managerial contribution of this investigation is the guidance for practitioners about
how to establish BDAC for the purpose of achieving successful S&OP. Beside the particular
sequence of developing the specific capabilities, the study also provides manifold examples of
BDA solutions related to S&OP. Due to the juvenility of BDAC and the associated time,
financial resources and effort for its development, the study also delivers one explanation for
the lack of studies on successful implementations of advanced forms of S&OP.
Although the study culminated in new insights into academia and practice, it is
constrained by numerous limitations. First, the single case study research methodology is
associated with a shortcoming of external validity. This calls for future research on
quantitative cross-industry studies to examine the extent of the effect of BDAC on S&OP
performance or ultimately on firm performance. Especially the impact of S&OP and BDAC on
high vs low planning complexity would be of high interest. Second, the study is not covering
social implications of S&OP implementation and BDAC development. The researchers
noticed that BDAC has an influence. Scholars are encouraged to examine behavioral aspects
of cross-functional collaboration driven by technological assistance, the consequences of
BDAC development in S&OP on how coworkers interact with each other, changes in required
job profiles and challenges or opportunities for training and communication in further
studies. Third, empirical evidence regarding implementations of the highest S&OP maturity
stages is scarce in academic research. The study sample does not solely demonstrate results
of the highest maturity stage either. Instead, only three of the 11 sub-units of analysis have
implemented IBP while the others are in an S&OP transition journey related to lower or
medium maturity stages. Hence, these three sub-units of analysis within the case study are
best practices, which need to be validated by further extreme cases with high S&OP maturity
stages. The investigated relation between BDAC and S&OP is explained in one specific
context within the agrochemical industry in a limited set of countries. In future, qualitative
studies in different contexts as well as quantitative studies could provide beneficial insights.

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IJPDLM Appendix

Figure A1.
Agrochemical
supply chain

Figure A2.
Fit vs difference
between performance
and perfExpected

Country Cluster 1 Cluster 2 Cluster 3

E1 0.0222 0.0879 0.8899

E2 0.0111 0.0995 0.8894
E3 0.0099 0.9676 0.0225
E4 0.0010 0.9957 0.0032
E5 0.9276 0.0457 0.0267
N1 0.0067 0.9615 0.0318
N2 0.0206 0.1589 0.8206
Table A1. S1 0.0132 0.9011 0.0857
Degree of membership S2 0.9565 0.0300 0.0135
from fuzzy C-means A1 0.2611 0.6055 0.1334
clustering A2 0.9067 0.0616 0.0318
Informant Excerpt of supportive quotes
Integrated
business
I1 “Material requirements plans and distribution plans are triggered after every forecast change and planning
show us directly if we reach a bottleneck somewhere.”
I2 “Predicting the top line is already an old story for us. We went further down the P&L and started to
utilize predictive analytics for costs of goods sold, distribution costs, gross profit, gross margin,
down to EBIT. Now we can do nice simulations.”
I3 “Taking the input from controlling and supply chain and adding market sizes, dose rates of our
products and market share developments automatically, allows us to plan our strategic long-term
forecast with less manual input.”
I5 “By considering all the different inputs for price management automatically we reduced a huge part
of our manual analysis based on customers, products, spring vs autumn season, life cycle status,
rebates . . .”
I6 “In the beginning it was a lot of effort to write down every decision for unhealthy batches but when I
see that all the historical decisions are now used by the machine to tell us what to do, it’s amazing.”
I13 “In the past the meeting had a duration of one to two days. Since the change, we do it in two hours
because we only talk about the important cases. The rest has already been done before .” Table A2.
I16 “In the past I spent a whole day every month to bring together all data from different systems. Now I Improvements in
have it in one tool and can use this day for value-adding activities.” S&OP efficiency due
... ... to BDA

Informant Excerpt of supportive quotes

W1 “In the past we had to upload all data [. . .] every month manually and sometimes there were of
course human errors. After IBP implementation we only edit where we have changes.”
I2 “We have less human errors because the tool shows an alert if any thresholds are exceeded as soon as
the value is entered.”
W1 “We benchmarked the statistics versus the manual forecasts and saw accuracy increases for specific
products especially in year two and three.”
I3 “The tool shows us directly the impact on profitability if we simulate changes of the substance factor
or the dose rate. This is basically the communication bridge between marketing and controlling.”
I6 “Simulations on the fly are a big benefit for our executive demand review meetings.”
W2 “Our decision-making is becoming more complex because we take into account more and more
influence factors. In the past it was the sales history plus some experience of managers.”
I7 “When the distributer shares the channel inventory levels, we can provide much more accurate
forecasts.” Table A3.
I16 “With one platform we can finally talk about the same set of numbers and understand the Improvements in
perspective and language of the other functions.” S&OP effectiveness
... ... due to BDA

Corresponding author
Evi Hartmann can be contacted at: evi.hartmann@fau.de

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