S&OP (Sales & Operations Planning)
Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) is the monthly cross-functional process that aligns a company's demand plan (what the business expects to sell) with its supply plan (what the supply chain can produce and deliver) and financial plan (what the business expects to spend and earn). S&OP bridges the commercial and operational sides of the organization and produces an agreed, constrained operating plan for the next 3–18 months. In software terms, S&OP requires an integrated planning model that holds demand, supply, inventory, capacity, and financial data simultaneously — which is why it is the most contested planning horizon in the SCM market.
Why it matters
S&OP is the process where supply chain software delivers its highest organizational ROI — and where most implementations fail. The failure mode is not technology: it is the organizational decision about who owns the process, what data governance model the plan runs on, and how tightly supply planning connects to financial planning. Platforms that collapse these distinctions (o9, Anaplan) can support more integrated IBP processes; platforms that specialize in supply planning (Kinaxis) require explicit organizational design to bridge the commercial-operational gap.
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Cite this definition
Finocchiaro, Michael. “S&OP (Sales & Operations Planning).” DemystifyingPLM PLM Glossary, 2026, https://www.demystifyingplm.com/glossary/s-op-sales-operations-planning