Sales and operations planning (S&OP) is a regularly scheduled process in which a company’s finance, sales and marketing teams collaborate with demand, supply, inventory and capacity planners, to project demand, as well as the resources needed to meet that demand, to create a viable production plan for the future. S&OP has been a procedural staple in supply chain planning for more than three decades and is designed to help companies bring stability to their decision-making activities so they can maximize revenue and market share, align budgets, and minimize costs and risks. While the process has traditionally taken weeks or months to complete, new methods and capabilities have significantly reduced planning time by eliminating reliance on slow moving, siloed tools like spreadsheets and emails, and increasing cross-functional transparency and collaboration.