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▲ Shady Ghattas
All that needs to be tightly integrated in planning, and there must be immediate feedback both through iterative planning processes and also once you’ re executing: If supplies get tight because of your pretariff push, you don’ t want to be promoting against empty shelves.
Such planning may also yield the need for alternative suppliers or even production facilities. In that case, your planning extends to supplier vetting, sourcing, hiring, and training, production setup, and more. Tariff compliance may involve tracking the source of inputs, as aluminum smelted in China and finished in Canada could face different tariff levels applying to the same rolled product.
Harmonized data, rationalized processes, and business transformation
How do you contend with all that on a practical level? Clearly, there are too many moving parts for point solutions to grapple with. High-velocity planning and execution touching supply chain and so many other parts of the business need reliable, consistent, harmonized data. That requires integrated, cloud-based business suites delivering under the banner of business transformation. Many CPGs are well along that process, others, less so.
Doing business transformation right demands deep dives into how various functions work internally and with external partners. How do warehouses talk to transportation? To manufacturing? How does manufacturing talk to procurement?
Getting answers that yield rationalized, harmonized data typically also highlights ways to improve and automate processes within and across business functions, increasingly with help from AI. So, as a CPG improves
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