o9 Solutions

Open the o9 workspace and start by connecting your core systems—ERP, CRM, planning spreadsheets, logistics feeds, and external signals like weather or market indices. Map fields with the guided importer, define data quality rules, and tag master data relationships (products, locations, customers, suppliers). The platform builds a connected data model so you can trace any metric back to its sources. Set thresholds for service, margin, and inventory, then subscribe stakeholders to alerts. From day one, you have a shared, live view of demand, supply, and financials instead of scattered files and siloed reports.

Run demand planning by selecting a time horizon (weekly, monthly, or seasonal) and a portfolio slice (by channel, region, category). Let the AI propose a baseline forecast using historicals and external drivers; accept, adjust, or segment by volatility. For promotions and new launches, drop in events and the system learns uplift patterns and cannibalization across SKUs. Test what-if scenarios for price, assortment, and marketing spend to see the impact on volume, revenue, and margin. Lock an approved forecast version, push tasks to sales and finance for sign-off, and publish a demand plan with clear ownership and change logs.

Translate demand into a feasible supply plan by loading capacities, supplier constraints, lead times, and yields. Use the constrained planner to allocate limited components to the most profitable or strategic demand, with immediate visibility to service trade-offs. Optimize inventory targets with multi-echelon logic, then simulate disruptions—port closures, a late supplier, or a quality issue—and compare recovery playbooks (expedite, alternate vendor, re-route, postponement). When you’re ready, generate planned orders, vendor commits, and transfer proposals, or send prioritized exceptions to buyers and schedulers to execute.

Orchestrate your monthly S&OP/IBP cycle in a single calendar: product review (lifecycle plans), demand review (consensus forecast), supply review (constraints and costs), integration (financial reconciliation), and executive review (decision forum). Use the scenario board to compare choices—grow share with promo depth, protect margin with mix shifts, or hold cash with lower stock—and commit to one plan. Retail teams can run assortment, allocation, and markdown strategies on the same data; procurement can score suppliers on on-time, quality, cost, and risk; sustainability leads can attach emissions factors to products and lanes to plan toward carbon targets. Close the loop by exporting the agreed plan to downstream systems and letting the platform learn from actuals to improve the next cycle.