No industry is challenged more by extremely short product lifecycles and high levels of competition than high-tech manufacturers. In just the past three years, manufacturers have been forced to balance between increasing demand and supply pressures in a variety of ways: • Fickle Demand: On average, consumers change mobile devices every 7 months • Escalating Variability: Demand is rapidly ramping for configure-to-order customization • Uneven Markets: Emerging markets lead growth but regional purchase and use is irregular • Volatility: Manufacturing supply chains face ever-increasing threats from unexpected natural disasters such as the Japanese tsunami and Thai floods For more information about IBP, please visit: http://www.steelwedge.com/solutions/integrated-business-planning-platform/

1. INTEGRATED BUSINESS PLANNING FOR HIGH-TECH MANUFACTURING DATA SHEET
Steelwedge Integrated Business Planning
for High-Tech Manufacturing
To respond, high-tech companies need a deep understanding of customer demand to
maximize assets and finished goods inventory. By rethinking existing, siloed processes
and developing new ones that anticipate demand, companies are able to react more
quickly to the unexpected. This results in high inventory turns and lowered lead-times
from order to delivery.
Leading Information Technology research and consultancy, Gartner, summarized in their
Top Supply Chain 25 report:
Role of Integrated Business Planning in High-Tech Manufacturing
To future-proof your process, you must engage C-level stakeholders in the strategic planning
and ensure that critical decisions are data-driven and timely.
Using an integrated technology that provides insight into multiple data sources, you can:
Page 1 of 2 | © 2013 Steelwedge Software, Inc. All rights reserved. – info@steelwedge.com – 925.460.1700
No industry is challenged more by extremely short product lifecycles and high levels of
competition than high-tech manufacturers. In just the past three years, manufacturers
have been forced to balance between increasing demand and supply pressures in a
variety of ways:
Fickle Demand: On average, consumers change mobile devices every 7 months
Escalating Variability: Demand is rapidly ramping for configure-to-order customization
Uneven Markets: Emerging markets lead growth but regional purchase and use is irregular
Volatility: Manufacturing supply chains face ever-increasing threats from unexpected natural
disasters such as the Japanese tsunami and Thai floods
Manage a global financial budget tied to sales numbers, revenues and operational forecasts
Maintain high-level, global visibility into external demand requirements from channel
partners, VARs, and distributors
Anticipate vendors’ supply constraints and react to long lead-times for components
Optimize inventory levels and maximizing customer service levels
Forecast option attach-rates using statistical bill of materials (BOMs)
Allocate capacity and raw materials across multiple suppliers based on overall capacity
utilization and profits
Introduce new products based on historical performance and curve modeling
Enable configure-to-order as well as build-to-stock business models in the same
environment.
”
“ Leaders in high-tech have moved beyond historical demand forecasting to
forward-looking demand management by pulling in multiple data sources in the
short-term, midterm and long-term to sense and shape demand for a more
profitable product and aftermarket response.

2. Page 2 of 2 | © 2013 Steelwedge Software, Inc. All rights reserved. – info@steelwedge.com – 925.460.1700
Steelwedge High-Tech Spotlight: Powering a FAST philosophy
for more agile Enterprise Networks Business
A leader in wired and wireless secure network solutions uses Steelwedge S&OP to stay in
front of global market shifts. In fact, in 2011 when its market took a 3% hit, this company put
in its 7th sequential quarter of increased revenues and logged 25% year over year growth.
Behind the success: it’s FAST (Flexible, Agile, Streamlined and Transformed) operating
philosophy driven by S&OP to bring together the right people, process and technology.
Key outcomes included:
The company’s closed loop planning process connects its demand and supply while
monitoring margin and revenue in real time. That visibility allows the company to identify and
react to emerging business trends by analyzing—versus chasing-- key business data.
substituted information for inventory
partnered with suppliers to reduce in-bound lead-times
postponed inventory closer to customer demand
utilized appropriate performance metrics, e.g. end-to-end pipeline time
Steelwedge Software, Inc.
Steelwedge integrated sales, operations and finance planning solutions provide the "shock absorbers" to recognize, recalibrate and respond in a volatile environment.
Business agility starts with Steelwedge for a clear line of sight from plan to performance to profit. For additional information, please email us: info@steelwedge.com.
Steelwedge Advantages for High-Tech Manufacturers
INTEGRATED BUSINESS PLANNING FOR HIGH-TECH MANUFACTURING DATA SHEET
For the Sales Team:
Enable collaborative forecasting for VARs, distributors, customers, and sales
Power plans at any level of detail including configuration packages
Integrate with the sales pipeline from CRM to support opportunity management
Provide annual operating plan (AOP) visibility as part of S&OP process
View cross-functional demand plans (sales, marketing, product management, etc.)
For the Product Management Team:
Develop attach-rate forecasts to drive mix forecasting for products (i.e. laptops)
and key components
Provides extended functionality that will support Fixed Bill of Material (BOM), Planning BOMs or
“derived attach” rates for strategic components based on actual history or pipeline.
Forecast at the option level or the planning BOM level. See where parts are used
across multiple platforms and compare total demand forecast vs. attach rate forecast.
Robust control of planning granularity with intuitive, slider-based data selection
For the Planning Team:
Drive company specific planning processes with One-Click Planning™ alert-driven workflow
Provide planning process visibility and progress reporting
Drive assigned or exception-based review policies
For the Executive Team:
Consolidate supply, demand and finance hierarchies into one comprehensive model
Enable more detailed planning assumptions via relationship attributes (i.e., customer specific
pricing, source specific costing).
Model business complexity and global volatility risks
Explore options to resolve and balance gaps
Generate upside/downside demand scenarios
Enable capacity-adjusted scenarios to resolve exceptions.