Death to Spreadsheets! New Directions in Demand Planning

Will we ever get rid of those dreaded spreadsheets? In a recent survey by Logility and APICS, 47 percent of respondents said they were still using manually produced spreadsheets to support their demand-planning process. Change is tough in any organization, and it can be a challenge to convince planners to give up something that's worked so well for years. But there's evidence that spreadsheets today ''could be sabotaging your supply chain,'' says Karin L. Bursa, vice president of marketing at Logility. She oversees the company's strategy development and marketing programs for Logility Voyager Solutions, the company's suite of supply-chain optimization software. Bursa talks about how spreadsheets are holding companies back from engaging in critical activities such as the creation of multiple planning scenarios and ''what-if'' evaluations. Time to get out of the ''firefighting'' mode, she says, and into proactive management of demand planning – to the point where marketers can even begin to shape demand.