How to Build a Relationship between Sales and Logistics for an Eff ective Demand Planning

The article shows that the best way to bring Sales and Logistics together is to fi nd common ground. The quick sell to Sales is product availability, and to Logistics, having the right inventory at the right time. Once they understand their mutual interests, their relationship will grow. Good communication is also important. Salespeople are on the front line, and know fairly well the customers’ promotional plans. If they communicate this information to Logistics in a timely manner, it would help to improve product availability. Copyright © 2014 Journal of Business Forecasting | All Rights Reserved | Summer 2014 31 are valued by customers. Leaders make conscious trade-offs, with an understanding that it may be appropriate to have benchmarks that are at par with industry averages while, at the same time, having other measures that reflect best-in-class outcomes. Now that many companies have created DSRs, to move to the next level will require the migration to DSV, and then, ultimately, to DSA. Until those companies implement DSV/DSA, they will not have the capabilities to take full advantage of all the “big” data collected, cleansed, and loaded into their DSRs. In order ...