Promotion Planning and Management with SAP IBP

⇨ Marketing promotions are the nature of the business in many industries, and the primary objective is to boost sales. However, promotions also created nuances from a demand planning and forecasting perspective.

⇨ Effectively manageing promotions while doing demand planning and forecasting is critical for a robust demand management process.

⇨ SAP IBP has dedicated features that help manage promotions effectively in demand planning and forecasting.

Demand forecasting was highlighted as a key challenge in SAPinsider's recent research Supply Chain Planning in The Cloud. The quality of forecasts also plays a key role in inventory management, which has emerged as another key focus area for SAPinsiders. We will also publish a research report focused on this specific topic of inventory management and optimization (November 2022). Some of the challenges of demand forecasting are also a result of the input data leveraged for forecasting. One of the challenges stems from marketing promotions data. Marketing promotions are the nature of the business in many industries, and the primary objective is to boost sales. However, promotions also created nuances from a demand planning and forecasting perspective. Fortunately, for SAP IBP users, the tool provides multiple features and functionalities for promotion planning and management. This article will review these promotion planning and management features in SAP IBP.