Goh, Shao Hung and Eldridge, Stephen (2019) The impact of sales and operations planning on supply chain performance : an investigation of contingency and organisational culture in S&OP implementations. PhD thesis, Lancaster University.
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Abstract
S&OP is a set of business processes and technologies that enable an enterprise to respond effectively to demand and supply variability, with insight into the optimal market deployment of resources and most profitable supply chain mix. S&OP can also be described as a means for internal coordination in which a cross-functional team reaches consensus on sales forecasts, capacity and/or production plans. This thesis aims to develop a deeper understanding of S&OP and in turn the specific means through which supply chain performance is impacted, via a combination of the case study and survey methods. The results from the first phase of this study show that in the case studies of the two separate companies, both cases show significant quantifiable improvements in supply chain performance from implementing S&OP. In the second phase of this study, a large-scale survey was conducted to test the efficacy of six coordination mechanisms of S&OP and the effect of contingency factors. Results based on 568 respondents indicate that Strategic Alignment and Information Acquisition/Processing are the mechanisms that most significantly enable superior S&OP outcomes. However, the survey dataset strongly suggests that a highly formalised S&OP Procedure inhibits supply chain performance. Furthermore, from a contingency theory perspective, increasing firm size and increasing experience in S&OP amplify the negative effect of a standardised S&OP Procedure upon supply chain performance. In the final phase of this study, the effect of organisational culture as an antecedent to S&OP coordination mechanisms is explored. Results show that a strong S&OP culture leads to better overall coordination outcomes, but a strong S&OP culture may concurrently suppress Supply Chain Performance via the S&OP Procedure/Schedule pathway due to competitive mediation.