With rising demand volatility, changing climate and ethical crisis such as the 2013 horse meat scandal, the need to identify and manage exceptions in planning is becoming increasingly important.  Exception based management should be essential in any forecasting software to improve the demand plan and aid the decision making process, saving both time and money.

The beauty of exception management is that it enables real time data to be captured and the current situation to be analysed through powerful exception alerts and status reviews.  For example, if sales are significantly lagging forecast or stock exceeds pre-agreed limits, these exceptions can be automatically detected and communicated to the right people at the right time, avoiding any escalation of issues in the future.  Indeed, teamed up with knowledgeable business users, this information can be cleverly used to correctively nudge the system and boost forecast accuracy.

At the tactical and strategic level of integrated business planning, exception based management shows a clearer overall picture than at operational level where trends are picked up on an individual customer level.  Indeed, this allows for longer term trends to be detected and enables better informed high level decision making such as investing in the capacity to meet new opportunities.

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