Operations

Operations1How to improve process efficiency is always going to be a key theme for operations, but in the past few years, operational stability has been put under pressure by a massive increase in input price volatility - especially in commodities and energy. This is set to continue for the foreseeable future as developed economies grow and global demand increases.

Yet, along with expectations on cost control and reduction comes an ever-present expectation of improvements in quality and safety. How do tomorrow's consumer businesses prioritise these seemingly contradictory demands? Smart investment decisions are called for, which address the key areas of automation and mobilisation.

The good news is that the pace of innovation is accelerating, so new solutions are emerging more rapidly, and the price of innovation is falling. Taking advantage of innovations in mobility and automation can reduce operational costs and increase quality drivers such as compliance and process adherence.

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Maximise the return on your capital investments

  • Deliver capital projects to the business faster through effective process control  
  • Improve resource management and prioritise projects through better programme visibility
  • Improve compliance and speed of gate decisions through better workflow processes 

Drive year-on-year savings through your supplier base

  • Deliver year-on-year savings from your external spend through better identification of where the savings opportunities are
  • Enable your purchasing and procurement teams to engage more effectively with stakeholders, with access to detailed information about when they are planning to spend their budget 
  • Effectively manage working capital through insight into the 'when' and 'where' patterns of money spent, and detailed information about supplier payment terms.

Reduce costs and improve customer service through integrated business planning

  • Improve long term operational planning through a consensus view of demand from the commercial functions
  • Tie in operational plans to corporate strategy by improving the cascade of plans through the organisation
  • Improve planning accuracy by clearer definition of accountabilities and inputs
  • Continually measure and improve planning assumptions across a longer planning horizon.

Improve short term forecast accuracy through improved visibility of demand

  • Enable a shared view of demand between commercial and supply chain by linking commercial planning and promotional systems to APO
  • Implement a structured approach to managing forecast accuracy
  • Build reporting flexibility to cater for changing hierarchies
  • Match demand to supply by creating a short-term demand control process.

Improve cost recovery planning by managing risk around volatile commodity prices

  • Provide an environment that facilitates 'what if' planning of different pricing scenarios
  • Translate these scenarios into SKU consequences to model cost and margin recovery requirements.

Bluefin Solutions can

  • Help you gain clarity on your underlying business issues
  • Implement high-performing, user-friendly solutions
  • Work with you as a team using our unique "collaboration, visualisation and iteration" approach
  • Optimise the performance of, or upgrade, your existing systems
  • Help you define an ongoing benefits realisation framework
  • Assist you in understanding various way of improving business performance through concepts such as the balanced scorecard.

SAP enablers

SAP APO, SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0, SAP Business Planning and Consolidation (BPC), SAP Customer Relationship Management (CRM), SAP Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), SAP HANA, SAP NetWeaver BW, SAP Strategy Management (SSM), SAP Trade Promotion Effectiveness (TPE), SAP Trade Promotion Management (TPM), SAP Trade Promotion Optimisation (TPO), Sybase Unwired Platform

Insights

Clients

Royal Mail