Demand Planning

Category: Planning

Definition (plain English)

The recurring process of turning sales history, customer commitments, market signals, and commercial assumptions into an agreed demand plan.

Why it matters commercially

Demand planning links sales ambition to purchasing, supplier capacity, freight timing, warehouse space, and working capital.

Example

A distributor delayed a replenishment PO after demand planning showed the prior container would still cover eight weeks of sales at current run rate.

Common mistake

Planning demand from last month sales only and ignoring promotions, seasonality, stockouts, customer pipeline, MOQ, shelf life, and lead-time variability.

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