What’s Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP)?

To lead a successful business, you need a strategy that unifies every moving part — from sales and marketing to inventory, production, and finance. Sales and operations planning (S&OP) is how you build that strategy. 

S&OP brings teams together to improve forecast accuracy and align supply with demand. With the right S&OP process in place, leaders gain the visibility and control needed to make informed, agile decisions.

We’ll break down the basics of S&OP and show you how to build an effective process step by step.

What Is Sales and Operations Planning?

S&OP is a structured, recurring process that helps companies create a coordinated plan to support broader business strategy. 

It starts with reviewing sales forecasts and demand trends — what you expect customers to buy and when. From there, supply chain and operations teams look at what’s actually possible to supply based on current inventory, production capacity, and lead times. Finance teams should add context around revenue targets and budget impacts, and marketing may also weigh in with upcoming campaigns or seasonal pushes that could shift demand. 

All of this information comes together in a cross-functional meeting where teams — or an executive — determine how to move forward. 

The ideal sales and operations plan strikes a perfect balance between supply and demand. When that balance is in place, companies can avoid overproduction, reduce stockouts, and respond to market shifts without scrambling. 

5 Benefits of a Sales Operating Plan

Now that you know what S&OP is, let’s explore its key benefits:

1. Improved forecast accuracy: S&OP brings up-to-date data from across the business into one conversation, making forecasts more grounded and reliable. With better visibility into demand trends and supply constraints, sales teams can set (and hit) more realistic targets.
2. Faster, smarter decision-making: S&OP gives leadership a clear view of supply and demand challenges, offering all the information needed to make better strategic decisions. The company can proactively seize opportunities and stay ahead of potential disruptions.
3. Stronger cross-functional alignment: In S&OP, different branches of the business work together to create and achieve a shared goal. That alignment reduces interdepartmental friction, boosting efficiency and minimizing surprises.
4. Better resource allocation: With demand and supply clearly mapped, companies can allocate people, capital, and materials more effectively. Sales leaders know what their reps can promise prospects, and operations teams understand what they need to deliver.
5. Greater agility and risk management: Markets shift fast, and a disciplined S&OP process gives you the agility to pivot when needed. Teams can quickly adjust production schedules or sales strategies to meet changes in demand. This leads to better risk management without sacrificing momentum or customer satisfaction.

6 Steps of the Sales and Operations Planning Process

Here’s how this type of demand planning works step-by-step:

1. Collect Data

S&OP always starts with data collection. Gather all the relevant information across departments:

• Sales teams provide past sales reports and future forecasts.
• Marketing shares insights on customer behavior, campaign performance, and market trends that could impact demand.
• Finance contributes budget considerations and revenue targets.
• Production reports on current capacity, lead times, and any supply chain risks.

It’s helpful to look at past sales, operations, and inventory planning materials, too. This highlights previous challenges you faced and shows how well past S&OP plans aligned with actual outcomes. Understanding what worked — and what didn’t — avoids repeating mistakes.

Don’t forget to ensure data integrity at this stage. Reliable, consistent intelligence creates a plan that truly reflects the business’s capacity and market realities. Without clean data, the entire S&OP process risks misalignment, which translates to missed opportunities.

Rely on Rox for highly reliable sales data. Rox’s agentic CRM automatically pulls insights from your pipeline and integrates that data in a centralized, intuitive platform. This helps you understand and proactively manage your pipeline, boost sales productivity, and generate accurate forecasts for supply planning.

2. Compare Supply and Demand

Once you’ve gathered all your data, analyze it to forecast supply and demand. Sales and marketing teams typically lead the demand side, creating forecasts based on customer interest, buying cycles, and market trends. Meanwhile, finance and production teams focus on what’s realistically available to fulfill that demand.

Compare these projections to identify potential gaps between supply and demand. Maybe demand is outpacing inventory, or maybe production is set to exceed what sales can move. Identifying these mismatches allows leaders to course-correct before problems arise.

3. Plan Operations

With a clearer view of supply-demand gaps, the next step is to create an actionable operational plan. Consider what each team needs to do to close those gaps and meet forecasted demand without overextending resources.

Operations and supply chain leaders typically complete this step. They might outline adjustments to production schedules, inventory levels, procurement times, and distribution strategies. But other departments should optimize their own strategies. For example, sales leaders might opt to improve sales processes with a tool like Rox. 

Rox’s intelligent automation helps sales teams reduce time-consuming manual tasks to close gaps in the sales funnel more efficiently. In addition to automated sales processes, Rox offers better pipeline visibility — so reps can effortlessly discover new leads and prioritize high-impact opportunities.

4. Hold a Meeting

After each team makes a plan, bring them together in an interdepartmental meeting. Discuss strategies, address conflicts or unresolved challenges, and settle on a unified path forward. This step turns siloed plans into a cohesive strategy that fuels better business outcomes.

5. Finalize the Plan

Following the interdepartmental meeting, the S&OP materials are sent to leadership. Executives weigh in to make sure the proposed plan aligns with broader strategic objectives, such as growth targets or profitability goals. Once satisfied, they finalize the plan and share it with the rest of the company so there’s no confusion about direction or expectations.

6. Implement and Review

The last step in the S&OP process is execution. Teams put the plan into action and track progress against the targets they set. That means monitoring sales performance, production output, and customer demand in real time (or as close to it as possible).

Implementation is only half the equation. A successful S&OP process builds in regular review cycles to evaluate what’s working and identify opportunities for improvement. If sales suddenly outpace projections or a supplier delay impacts production, some teams will need to pivot with agility.

Reviewing the plan also creates a feedback loop. Each cycle delivers new insights that feed into the next round of planning. Over time, this sharpens forecasts and tightens execution.

3 Features To Look for in Sales and Operations Planning Software

Supply chain planning software can make or break your planning process. Whether you’re a growing business or managing complex global operations, here are three essential features to prioritize when evaluating your options:

1. Accuracy: Decisions are only as sound as the data behind them. Choose a platform that prioritizes automatic data syncing and precise intelligence. For example, Rox is an excellent addition to any S&OP toolkit because it offers AI-driven sales insights.
2. Flexibility: Look for software that adapts to your unique workflows and scales with your business. Customizable dashboards, modular features, and seamless integrations (like what Rox delivers) help you tailor the platform to your industry and evolving operational needs.
3. Accessibility: S&OP is a team effort, so make sure all software is easy to use and accessible across departments. Cloud-based tools with user-friendly interfaces, like Rox, eliminate silos and align everyone on key metrics and next steps.

Rox: The Smart Layer Between Sales and Operations

Strategic S&OP lays the groundwork for scalable revenue growth, and the right layer of automation and intelligence takes your strategy further. Rox is that layer.

Powered by a unique AI agent model, Rox enables you to execute production plans faster and more precisely. Automate time-consuming tasks, generate timely sales actions, and access proactive forecasting that enhances your sales and operations plans. 

Unlike traditional sales operations planning software, Rox doesn’t just highlight gaps. It closes them in real time through task automation and guided follow-up. It’s also designed for seamless onboarding so your team can start improving alignment and driving results with minimal disruption.

Watch our demo to learn more about how Rox elevates S&OP execution.