Forget the Future of

S&OP, What’s the Future

of Growth?
By Chris Turner

E X E C U T I V E S U M M A R Y | T he term “the great acceleration” was first coined in 2004 by Will Steffen and his team of
scientists when mapping the massive change in human trends and activities towards the end of the 20th century. Population
growth, urbanization, technological advances, and consumption are all part of his study, which had a profound effect on
various aspects of life. Most organizations are now waking up to an analogous acceleration in drivers of change, ones that
have equally disruptive effects, both upon life in general and business in particular. These accelerations are giving rise to non-
linear change, and we need to rethink about our forecasting, planning, and decision-making processes in this dramatically
different context.

C H R I S T U R N E R | Chris is co-founder of StrataBridge, a boutique consulting firm advising organizations

on strategy, innovation, and operations. Chris works with business leaders and cross-functional teams to
implement strategy and establish the processes, behaviors, and capabilities required to grow, including
developing joined-up decision making, S&OP, and IBP as a means of delivering strategy. He has worked
with companies of all shapes and sizes, across various industries and cultures, and has consulted in over 30
countries. He is a regular speaker at international conferences and strategy retreats.

G
rowth has always been on the
agenda for every business. But
in the face of unprecedented
volatility, innovations spawning new
competition from virtually anywhere,
and the resulting unpredictability of
future profitability, the mantra of “if
you’re not pursuing growth, you’re
inviting decline” has given way to the
more acute “grow or die.” As a result,
growth has moved to the top of the
agenda for all organizations, but not
just any growth—aggressive, dispro-
portionate, and sustainable growth.
When we think about growth, we
think about more sales, more profit,
more customers, and more volume.
While these are some of the outcomes,
driving disproportionate growth
against a backdrop of change requires
something deeper: growth in talent

Copyright © 2018 Journal of Business Forecasting | All Rights Reserved | Spring 2018 | www.ibf.org 11
and capability, reallocating resources
to new opportunities, and innovating
and transforming to continually
adapt to changing and unpredictable
circumstances. If you’re serious about
growth, you’ll recognize the need
to critically review the processes
and behaviors that were designed
for different objectives in a different
time—S&OP/IBP included. If we
continue to view S&OP and IBP in the
same way, they will no longer be fit for
purpose.
THE CHANGING
NATURE OF CHANGE
There is overwhelming evidence
that we are currently at an inflection
point consisting of rapidly shifting
demographics, advances in technolo-
gies, proliferation of data, constant
and instant connection of people and
things (and the interdependencies
that accompany them), and the sheer
brute force of computational power.
These advances present a conundrum
because they promise the means to
calculate everything, providing an
unprecedented predictive capabil-
ity, while at the same time accelerat-
ing the non-linearity in the conditions
these predictions are trying to tame.
We are dealing with a transition that is
rapidly dismantling one system while
starting to shape another.
It would be naïve to assume that
processes designed decades ago are
best suited to navigating this transi-
tion or preparing us for what’s on the
other side. We need to think differ-
ently about change, and about the ca-
pabilities required to compete in this
changing world. As Edward de Bono
said, “You can’t dig a new hole by dig-
ging the same one deeper.”
In times of incremental growth and
linear change, winning organizations
12 Copyright © 2018 Journal of Business Forecasting | All Rights Reserved | Spring 2018 | www.ibf.org
Figure 1 | Where Are We in the Cycle of Growth?
Where Are You?
Existing Organizational
Capacity & Capability
(End2End)
Rate of Change
Growth/Change/Innovation/
Complexity
Time
honed their understanding of how
their world worked in terms of their
customers, competitors, suppliers, and
industry dynamics, and refined their
organizational capability to stay ahead
of any change. Like any system that
evolves in relatively stable conditions
over time, the skills, processes,
systems, and behaviors become what
CalTech scientist John Doyle describes
as “Robust-Yet-Fragile.” Robust in the
sense of being designed to cope with
known conditions and perturbations,
yet fragile in the face of unanticipated
changes in the environment.
The accelerating nature of change,
innovation, and growth, particularly
in our increasingly interconnected
world, increases complexity. This is not
a narrow definition of complexity such
as SKU count; rather, it is the broader
definition of an increasing number of
moving parts, with multiple interac-
tions and dynamic interdependencies.
The erosion of existing capability (see
Figure 1) is not necessarily due to lack
of investment or attention, but typical-
ly a focus on capabilities that were his-
torically important rather than those
that will become increasingly impor-
Organizational Capacity,
Capability, & Coherence
Designed from the Future
tant, and the compounding effect that
growth and complexity have on this.
Often, different functions in the busi-
ness feel this pressure but respond to
it in different ways resulting in opti-
mization of the components, rather
than optimization of the whole. Once
behind the curve, it is increasingly dif-
ficult to get back ahead. Ask yourself
this: where are you in these dynamics
and, looking from a future perspective,
how do you design the capabilities and
coherence you need?
The disruptive forces propelling
growth/innovation/complexity high-
light the need for capability and coher-
ence more than ever. These changes
can be categorized in an infinite num-
ber of ways with some labels getting
more traction than others. I’m not look-
ing to add more variants here, but I am
going to introduce the “shorthand” I’ve
developed to simplify the convergence
of some of the big trends behind the
massive changes we’re experiencing.
MOORE, METCALFE,
AND MORE
Above all, this summary aims to
highlight some of the changes behind
the pace of change, and why these are
driving non-linear outcomes. This is
key to how we approach any review of
our capabilities, as it would be danger-
ous to approach a non-linear problem
with a linear mind-set and tools, as
these quickly become fragile and part
of the problem rather than part of the
solution. Let’s take a look at “Moore,
Metcalfe, and More.”
• “Moore”—This first element takes
its name from Gordon Moore, co-
founder of Fairchild Semiconductor
and Intel, and his observation 50 years
ago that became known as Moore’s
Law. It posited that the number of
transistors on an integrated circuit
would double every two years. To
this day, it provides a roadmap for
computing advances, resulting in
exponential capabilities including
the iPad you might be reading this
on and the broadband that allowed
you to download it in seconds. Ray
Kurzweil later expanded on this with
the Law of Accelerating Returns,
demonstrating that a wide range
of technologies and evolutionary
processes exhibit exponential
change and growth leading to
“technological change so rapid and
profound it represents a rupture in
the fabric of human history.”
• “Metcalfe”—The second element
takes its name from Bob Metcalfe,
co-inventor of the Ethernet technol-
ogy and protocols. Beyond the tech-
nical innovations, his insights first
captured the fundamental power of
connection and characterized the
network effects of communications
networks, the Internet, social net-
works, and the web. Metcalfe’s Law
states that the value of a network
is proportional to the square of the
number of connected users. While
not exponential, the increasingly
Copyright © 2018 Journal of Business Forecasting | All Rights Reserved | Spring 2018 | www.ibf.org 13
connected, always on, high-band-
width world we operate in creating
non-linear, accelerating outcomes,
and the constantly shifting balances
of power that come with this chang-
ing topology.
• “More”—The last element is both
a catch-all and a description of an-
other phenomenon of our times—
MORE of everything. More techno-
logical advances in many domains
like info, nano, robo, and bio. More
people, more devices, more con-
nections, more potential custom-
ers, and more potential competi-
tors. The result is a VUCA (volatile,
unpredictable, complex, and am-
biguous) business environment
with greater extremes.
It would be naïve to think that the
combined effects of Moore, Metcalfe,
and More are not going to change your
industry, your customers, your competi-
tion, or your business. This is already af-
fecting you personally, at an individual
level. If you’ve bought something from
Amazon, sold something on e-Bay,
looked at jobs on LinkedIn, booked
an Uber, or WhatsApp’d a friend, then
you’re part of this disruption. Google is
a product of these forces and accelerat-
ing times. They understand the need to
disrupt themselves before somebody
else does. As Eric Schmidt said, “Some-
one, somewhere in a garage is gunning
for us. I know, because not long ago we
were in that garage.
THINKING ABOUT
HOW WE THINK
It’s tempting to jump to the usual
suspects for S&OP/IBP improvement,
e.g., trying to get more commercial in-
volvement, more top management at-
tention, and integration with budget-
ing and financial planning processes.
These have consistently topped the
polls of the biggest S&OP/IBP chal-
lenges and pain points for decades.
These levers for S&OP improvement,
however, will become less and less
effective if we continue with this ap-
proach in the face of increasing levels
of external and internal change. With
that, we risk making the process part
of the problem rather than part of the
solution.
With changes in our business eco-
system occurring externally and inter-
nally, and in a rapidly changing world,
we need to broaden our perspective
and challenge the received wisdom,
unspoken assumptions, and baggage
that comes with existing processes
and behaviors.
The findings in Eric Wilson’s “Pre-
paring for Demand Planning in 2025”
article in the Winter 2017-2018 issue of
The Journal of Business Forecasting are
prescient. Advanced decision making,
advanced S&OP/IBP, advanced intelli-
gence, and advanced analytics were re-
ported as key requirements to survive
in the years to come. The “advanced”
label is a telling insight into what we
don’t know. In the words of Nobel Prize
winning experimental physicist, and
UC Berkeley professor, Luis Alvarez,
“This course is labeled “advanced” be-
cause we don’t understand it very well.
If there were a clear and consistent
theory about what is going on here,
we would call this course “elementary
physics.”
In the face of uncertainty, we are
prone to many cognitive biases and
will grasp at “certainty” wherever we
can find it. In this situation, it’s tempt-
ing to lean on the familiar crutches of
proven techniques and best practices.
But the winners, amid changing condi-
tions, approach this with a different,
more open, innovative mind-set.
Lin Wells, a military strategist and
former Assistant Secretary of Defense
Figure 2 | Three Approaches to Thinking

“Inside the Box”! optimizing within “Outside the Box”! consciously aiming “No Box”! reframing the conversation
“Inside the Box”! optimizing within the “Outside the Box”! consciously aiming to “No Box”! reframing the conversation
the existing mental framework, to “get outside” of existing constraints, and “opening-up a new solution space”
existing mental framework, emphasizing “get outside” of existing constraints, but and “opening-up a new solution space”
emphasizing the current capabilities, butsubject
subject by starting from a different place.
the current capabilities, expertise, and toto anchoring
anchoring byby using
using thethe
current by starting from a different place. Con-
expertise,
pushing and pushing
harder harder
on existing on new
levers, current construct
construct as theasreference
the reference
pointpoint
to “get Consciously
sciously and
and explicitly
explicitly suspend
suspend existing
existing levers,
possibilities and new
ideaspossibilities
constrainedand both to outside
“get outside of” incremental
of” incremental changeschanges
to current existing mental
mental models
models andand challenge
challenge precon-
ideas constrained
explicitly both explicitly
and implicitly and
by anchoring to expertise
current expertise and capabilities.
and capabilities. Intuitively preconceived assumptions.
ceived assumptions. Emphasizing the
implicitlyexisting
inside by anchoring inside Assumes,
construct. Intuitively
suggestssuggests
that thethat current
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mental model Emphasizing
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is “radically is
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implicitly, that model
is notis not fundamentally
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current or implicitly,
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but implicitly or explicitly
or explicitly accepts perspectives,
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optimal mental
widermodel is and just needs
context, accepts or is or
this constraint
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unable to
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Reframingto explore new possibilities.
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fundamentally
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to improvefor wider
our answers question it. Looking
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Trying to improve our answers to innovative and relevant solutions.
the same questions.

for Networks and Information Integra-
tion, describes three ways of think-
ing about this type of problem: “in
the box,” “out of the box,” and “where
there is no box.” The only sustain-
able way of thinking about increas-
ingly complex problems, he argues,
is “thinking without a box.” An adap-
tation of these three approaches is
shown in Figure 2.
To illustrate, let’s consider these
distinctions in the context of S&OP.
Thinking “in the box” is likely to lead to
improvements such as the use of the
statistical tools we already have, re-
formatting agendas of fundamentally
the same meetings, providing more
education that repeats the same pro-
cess description, in the same way, to
the same people. It is the equivalent
of trying to explain to someone who
doesn’t speak your language, or un-
derstand what you’re saying, by shout-
ing it louder.
Thinking “out of the box” might lead
to improvements like different ways
of engaging commercial, integrating,
and collaborating with finance, or
demonstrating value to senior man-
agement. But by anchoring the think-
ing—implicitly or explicitly—around
the process, rather than the broader
external and business context and
multiple stakeholder perspectives,
we limit the ways of achieving deep
change. For example, we try to engage
commercial in attending the demand
review and improving forecast accu-
racy rather than understanding the
commercial and go-to-market deci-
sion-making processes, how these are
changing, and how we can better inte-
grate them. We try to integrate with Fi-
nance by imposing the S&OP structure
on them and, in their eyes, distracting
them from their well-established and
more important financial planning.
We try to show the value of S&OP to
senior management by taking more
details into the S&OP meeting rather
than starting with the decisions they
see as important and designing back
from there.
Thinking with “no box” starts from
a different place. It starts with a wider
business context—the big external
trends, changing dynamics, our strate-
gic choices, and how we need to adapt
to grow. It suspends what we know
about the S&OP/IBP process or our in-
cumbent financial planning processes,
innovation processes, or any other
planning and decision making that
were designed for different times. We
look at our innovation, portfolio man-
agement, commercial, supply, finan-
cial, strategic decision-making needs,
and the critical connections between
them, in the context of changing exter-
nal conditions, our strategic priorities,
and what will be required for coher-
ent course correction. By starting from
a different place and reframing the
questions, we understand the joined-
up decision-making capabilities neces-
sary to deploy and deliver our strategy,
focusing on the key growth drivers.
Naturally, the context and specifics
for any organization are unique. One
size doesn’t fit all. Rather than asking
closed questions that are designed

14 Copyright © 2018 Journal of Business Forecasting | All Rights Reserved | Spring 2018 | www.ibf.org
with a predetermined answer in mind,
we need open questions that reframe
the opportunity, stimulate dialogue,
and provoke innovation.
SERIOUS ABOUT
GROWTH? ASK THE
RIGHT QUESTIONS!
The following questions are an
abridged version of those that form
part of StrataBridge’s “Designing for
Growth” methodology. Design in this
sense is Design with a Capital “D”—not
the way the word is often used in the
limited application of “S&OP process
design,” which refers almost exclusive-
ly to process flowcharts and meeting
agendas. It is impact driven, human-
led, and future focused, developing
new solutions to complex problems
that resonate with, and engage, mul-
tiple stakeholders. These solutions are
highly sensitive to the specific context
and culture and are naturally transdis-
ciplinary.
“The secret ambition of Design is
to become invisible, to be taken-
up in the culture, absorbed into
the background.”—Bruce Mau
The questions below provide a
“framework of frameworks” supported
by principles, models, and more de-
tailed frameworks, and tools to delve
deeper and ensure coherence at dif-
ferent levels and across multiple di-
mensions. While they can be posed se-
quentially and independently, the way
to come to a meaningful answer is to
view them as interdependent.
0. What’s going on here? This ques-
tion is fundamentally about under-
standing the explicit diagnosis of the
forces and changes at work in your
world and how you can harness these
Copyright © 2018 Journal of Business Forecasting | All Rights Reserved | Spring 2018 | www.ibf.org 15
to create an advantage. This is num-
bered as Question Zero to emphasize
the context and direction this creates
for the rest, and should be an integral
part, both explicitly and implicitly, of
your strategy.
1. Are we wired for Control or Growth?
This explores our predisposition, ca-
pabilities, and culture across various
dimensions. Do we value, prioritize,
and reward Efficiency or Agility, Com-
pliance or Creativity, Standardization
or Innovation? How does this balance
need to shift to allow us to compete
across the spectrum from start-up,
through scaling up, to operating at
scale?
2. Where’s the growth? A more granu-
lar version of our overarching strate-
gic choices, focusing on our great-
est sources of growth across brands,
markets, channels, customers, and
products. These “where to play” and
“how to win” choices focus attention
and resources.
3. What is the design of our ecosystem?
Developing a common understand-
ing about the future consequences
for our organizational ecosystem.
Consider the blend of “hard” (sys-
tems, structure, infrastructure, pro-
cess, tools, and resources) and “soft”
(people, behavior, skills, mindset, and
capabilities), and the critical interac-
tions between them.
4. Are we adapting our decision mak-
ing? As the topology of our markets,
customers, and competition changes,
we will have an increasingly uneven
knowledge of the world, putting dif-
ferent stresses on our forecasting,
planning, and decision-making rou-
tines.
5. What are the intersections to invest
in? In any situation, some actions will
have a disproportionate impact—a
greater return on the effort or re-
source invested. From a forecasting,
planning, and decision-making per-
spective, these leverage points are
likely to be at the intersection be-
tween different perspectives, func-
tions, and processes.
6. Direction, roadmap, and course cor-
rection? Not a SKU-by-SKU plan for
the next 24 months, but the direc-
tional mix of overarching purpose, le-
verage points to drive disproportion-
ate impact, and course-correction
routines to ensure coherent and rap-
id progress. Creating an explicit con-
nection between short-, medium-,
and long-term results.
With this brief overview, you should
get a sense of how these questions
depend on, build on, and inform each
other. None of them are ever fully an-
swered and all of them are dynamic,
which is where their power lies. You
should also get an insight into the for-
mative answers and implications for
your organization and a sense of the
opportunities this dialogue provides,
continually refining the choices and
consequences embodied in your strat-
egy and the pivotal actions to acceler-
ate it.
THE BRIDGE FROM
THE FUTURE BACK TO
CURRENT REALITY
Hopefully you’ve been able to put
aside your current view of what S&OP/
IBP is, resisting the trap of confirma-
tion bias and rigorously questioning
whether your context is changing, and
how. Now it’s time to start creating the
bridge back from your future to your
current reality.
Your responses to the above ques-
tions, and the insights and priorities
they generate, will be unique. But
let’s consider the different forecast-
ing, planning, and decision-making
Figure 3 | From Historic/Present to Future Focus—An Example
Commercial
Forecast
Supply
Innovation
New Product
Accuracy
Introduction
Stability
Efficiency
Portfolio
“Visibility”
Management
SKU
Rationalization
perspectives that will be required to
support these. Don’t think of these
just in terms of S&OP/IBP meetings;
rather, think of them in terms of the
kinds of plans and decisions that will
be important as you navigate your
route through change, innovation, and
growth. Don’t think of these in purely
functional terms either. While the ac-
countability and “center of gravity”
might lie with a given function, these
are cross-functional in nature and the
connections between them are as im-
portant as the individual perspectives.
Understanding the focus of your
growth strategy and the need for co-
herence of decisions and actions across
the organization, you can now identify
the leverage points and intersections to
invest in for accelerated and sustained
growth.
Once again, every case will be dif-
ferent, but Figure 3 illustrates how this
shifting emphasis might look, moving
from a traditional, supply-led process
to one geared towards increased inno-
vation, a dramatically changing portfo-
lio, and the continual optimization and
adaptation to both course-correct to-
wards, and continually inform, overall
direction.
16 Copyright © 2018 Journal of Business Forecasting | All Rights Reserved | Spring 2018 | www.ibf.org
Finance
Reconcile
to Budget
Direction
“S&OP Meeting -
Agree the
Plan”
Optimization
& Adaptation
“Pre-S&OP”
Meeting
The core trio of Commercial, Sup-
ply, and Finance are still at the heart,
but like the visual stresses, the context
is increasingly impacted by change, in-
novation, and growth and the forecast-
ing, planning, and decision-making
processes that drive them. Depend-
ing on your strategy and where you’re
starting, the change might be signifi-
cant, disruptive, and even transforma-
tional. But accelerating external trends
and conditions are causing disruption
anyway, and strategy is about stay-
ing ahead of, and harnessing these
changes. As Jeff Bezos observes, “The
Internet is disrupting every industry.
You know, people can complain about
that, but complaining is not a strategy.
Amazon is not happening to book sell-
ing, the future is happening to book
selling.” Amazon continues to leverage
those future trends to upend multiple
categories and industries.
WHAT ABOUT
DEMAND PLANNING
AND FORECASTING?
As you look over the ideas, ques-
tions, and themes raised in this article,
Optimization
& Adaption
you should see how Demand Planning
and Forecasting play their part. At the
heart of this reshaping is a phrase that
Eric Wilson used in wrapping up his
“Preparing for Demand Planning in
2025” article:“ Our role will begin to
progress from being Demand Planners
and Data Scientists to being Decision
Scientists.” Being at the intersection
between the outside and the inside,
and bridging across functions, you are
on the fault lines where these various
forces are going to create snapping
changes to our view of the world. As
Demand Planners, Forecasters, and
Data Analysts, you have a unique per-
spective, input, and role in helping your
organization develop a meaningful un-
derstanding of how these changes are
unfolding, and how to respond and
adapt. Both personally and as a func-
tion, get ahead of this curve by recast-
ing your role in the context of the deci-
sions required for the future. Reach out
to other functions and engage them in
the “Designing for Growth” questions.
Identify the leverage points you can
use to demonstrate disproportionate
impact. To quote Dr. Jain, “We are at a
pivotal stage, let’s embrace it!”
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