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Upended supply chains, global shortages and logistical complexities have pinned advanced manufacturing and mobility (AM&M) businesses between the proverbial rock and a very hard place. That said, the future belongs to opportunistic organizations that are ready to reposition even the toughest challenges as powerful possibilities. Delivering on that promise begins by embracing integrated business planning (IBP) to unlock your potential — and doing so now.

Why is integrated business planning absolutely critical today?

Chip shortages. Missing parts. Vanishing talent. Aging plants. Right across the AM&M space, this perfect, pandemic-fuelled storm of factors is driving years-long backlogs that don’t just hurt the bottom line. These influential forces limit your organizational ability to serve customers from one day to the next. That reality can threaten the relevance of your business or brand, especially as innovative market entrants shake up what people buy, when and how.

Staying ahead of this evolving risk requires AM&M businesses to boldly draw a new path forward — one that’s directly aligned to today’s consumer realities and tomorrow’s market trends. Elevating supply chain as a strategic lever, then reframing both what you do and how you do it, can position you to capitalize on this situation in ways that engage consumers and employees alike. That’s huge. You can’t accomplish it, though, without linking strategy to execution through a clearly articulated road map. Therein lies the need for IBP.

By taking a great idea and pairing it with even better planning, IBP connects every aspect of your operations with a compelling and connected direction. It aligns all functions in the organization and connects strategy to execution while answering the fundamental questions that can help you unlock efficiency, sustainable profit and long-term growth. Employing IBP to question where the market demand lies, whether you can supply it, and how you’ll deal with trade-offs helps you develop a unified business plan that’s pursued by all and evaluated against a unified data set.

This is how IBP connects your business model to support new objectives, supports a rigorous governance system to keep you on track and refreshes processes to ensure you have the capabilities, people, technology and insight to execute exceedingly well.

How can you embrace integrated business planning to harness opportunities?

It’s not enough to set your sights on new possibilities. To succeed, you must support that vision by aligning functional teams and focus areas through IBP. Keeping three guiding principles in mind as you embrace IBP can help make everything you’re doing support future growth:

1.     Start with a holistic view of where your organization stands now.

All good IBP begins by diving deep to get a clear understanding of what’s working and what’s not. For AM&M organizations, that means getting a comprehensive look at operations while identifying the biggest trouble spots and the greatest strengths.

Maybe your data isn’t reliable enough to provide insight you can trust. Perhaps the disconnection between processes and ERP systems is wreaking havoc on operations. On the flipside, maybe you’re way ahead on automation, already freeing up time and capital by incorporating robotics and digital workers on the shop floor.

You must understand current downsides and upsides to apply IBP effectively. Starting with that knowledge enables you to remodel for the better, with a strategic architecture that’s capable of supporting change and cultivating resilience.

2.     Translate what you do best into a new value proposition.

Imagining a new identity, purpose or brand begins by bringing your strengths to bear against the broader operating context. Organizations across AM&M are already armed with capabilities that can be tweaked to suddenly fulfill an emerging market need or consumer demand in fascinating — and profitable — ways.

Car manufacturers evolving into software developers as transportation goes electric. For-the-masses producers transforming supply chain delays into opportunities to customize bespoke offerings. Chances are you already have a lot to work with. The key is to zero in on the overlap between what you do best and what the market wants most, as historic value drivers change. Then evolve your business model accordingly.

Working through an IBP process allows you to spot that intersection and then identify the in-house capabilities you’ll need to integrate strategic direction with operational coordination. This approach to planning brings all these factors into a single, streamlined action plan, while highlighting net new investments you may need to make along the way. And it’s absolutely essential.

3.     Check context deliberately and consistently to channel short-term momentum into long-term gains.

Outdated plants can become digitally enabled hot beds for innovation. Yesterday’s combustion component producer could represent tomorrow’s electric grid designer. You can produce what the world needs more of by committing to continuously checking your relevance against the broader context you operate in.

Consumers have changed a lot. What’s more, the market — including the world’s largest institutional investors — has redefined long-term value creation and what it means to support environmental, social and governance (ESG) priorities. Employing IBP across your operations can help create clear, built-in processes for gauging your direction against the market’s. This allows you to identify the specific tools  — think various supply chain and financial planning software — best-in-class capabilities and future-focused skillsets you need to stay nimble.

Context matters more than ever, and it’s ever more important to be responsive to the shifts in market and consumer behaviours. Through well-defined, structured and digitally enabled IBP processes, companies can pull entire organizations together to align on the need for change in direction, resource planning and execution governance.

Fortunately, we’re living through a veritable data explosion. IBP helps you use that data to your advantage in light of whatever trends are shaping your customers’ expectations and the market around you. Applying IBP horizontally and vertically across your organization and your supply chain fosters always-on analysis of gaps where stronger automation, analytics or data infrastructure could make an impact. Whether you’re rethinking fulfillment with a hybrid digital approach or seeking to tap environmentally sound raw material providers: IBP allows you to pursue those objectives strategically.

What’s the bottom line for advanced manufacturing and mobility companies?

Refusing to move on disruption now could mean failing to stay relevant, maintain market share or seize the kind of opportunities that lead to profitable future growth. Embracing IBP presents a key way for AM&M organizations to jump on the opportunities that disruption brings and write a new story.