
Q&A: What Leading Merchandising Teams Get Right About Planning Transformation
A conversation with Board’s Head of Retail Solutions We sat down with the Head of…
Remember When Sell-Out Data Was the Breakthrough?
For decades, CPG companies planned based on what they shipped. Forecasts began with sell-in volumes and cascaded downstream through siloed processes and assumptions.
Then came sell-out data—and with it, a breakthrough. Planners could finally see real consumption. Forecasting shifted from internal guesswork to external demand.
But in today’s environment, even that’s not enough.
According to McKinsey’s State of the Consumer 2025:
Planning must evolve again—beyond visibility, toward direct connection. To win, CPG leaders must plan as close to the customer as they sell.
Demand and Supply Planning—Stronger Together
In legacy models, demand and supply planning ran in sequence. Demand teams set the forecast; supply teams reacted. The result? Mismatches, delays, and missed opportunities.
Today’s demand planning must be:
Supply planning must evolve in tandem:
And critically: Improving OTIF (On-Time In-Full) is no longer just an operations metric—it’s a planning outcome.
By connecting demand and supply in a shared model, teams reduce stockouts, avoid overproduction, and improve customer experience across every channel.
With Board, these functions operate in lockstep—driven by shared signals, assumptions, and goals.
D2C Has Redefined Planning Complexity
D2C is no longer optional—it’s strategic. By 2025, global D2C ecommerce in CPG will exceed $213 billion, growing at 15%+ annually.
But its growth has exposed deep planning challenges:
Board brings D2C into the heart of the enterprise plan—ensuring customer expectations are met, margin is protected, and the entire value chain is aligned in advance.
Commercial Planning: Aligning Demand with What’s Deliverable
As demand becomes more fragmented, commercial planning has to do more than set sales targets. It must be tightly connected to supply, finance, and execution.
That means:
With Board, commercial teams don’t operate in isolation. They collaborate in real time with finance, supply, and operations—so trade spend is smarter, execution is aligned, and performance is more predictable.
Where Leading CPGs Are Investing Now
Across our global customer base, four priority areas define the shift to connected customer planning:
Forecasts continuously adapt to real-time market signals—POS, promotion, sentiment, and more.
Planning functions operate in sync—balancing accuracy, service, cost, and OTIF performance from day one.
D2C, retail, and wholesale are planned as one ecosystem—with visibility across inventory, pricing, and fulfillment.
Promotional scenarios are tested and aligned rapidly with supply constraints and financial targets to avoid margin erosion.
Final Thought
Forecasting used to be about better guesses. Then it became about better data.
Now it’s about better connection—connecting demand to supply, strategy to execution, and every decision to what the customer and market dictates.