For brands that run a formal Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP), Confido has dedicated tooling to structure and manage the cycle. Even for brands that are earlier in their S&OP journey, this functionality can be used more informally as a monthly demand review workflow.
10.1 Kicking Off an S&OP Cycle and Commenting
A new S&OP cycle is kicked off from within the Demand Planning workspace. When you start a cycle, you define:
The planning horizon to review — for example, “review the next 3 periods of major activities”
What you want to see — confirm upcoming promotions are still happening and correctly timed, confirm new distribution opportunities are still on track, update store counts or timing if anything has changed
Once the cycle is kicked off, demand planners will be able to see relevant promotions, pipefills and opportunities. The demand planner can go into the respective item and, through the commentary function, communicate directly with the sales team in Confido. During an active S&OP cycle, sales team members see a list of the specific items they need to take action on in the activity review section of the sales module:
Promotions coming up in the review window that need confirmation — is this still happening? Is the timing right? Is the store count accurate?
Distribution opportunities in the pipeline — is this still on track? Has the reset date shifted? Has the store count changed?
They can confirm, adjust, or flag each item directly from their notification dashboard. Once confirmed, the update flows into the Demand Plan automatically as part of the controlled sync process.
