14. The Yin and Yang of IBP
Recently in a conversation with recruiter @KatherineBiggelar she mentioned a trend away from employing only Demand Planners, or hybrid Demand Planners that do Supply Planning also, back to employing dedicated Supply Planners as well.
I reckon Katherine is seeing that companies are waking up to something that should have been obvious all along.
The Great Planning Awakening
After years of demand planning being the golden child of IBP/S&OP, supply planning is back to having its moment. And about time too.
Here's what I see: Companies spent the last decade obsessing over demand forecasting. Better models, fancier AI, more sophisticated analytics. All brilliant stuff. But then they'd create these beautiful demand plans and... struggle to actually deliver them.
It's like trying to balance on one leg. Yes, you might manage it for a while, but eventually, you're going to wobble. And when supply chain disruptions hit (yes, 2020-2025), that wobble becomes a face-plant.
The Yin and Yang Reality
In traditional Chinese philosophy, yin and yang represent complementary forces that create harmony when balanced. In IBP, demand and supply planners are exactly that - two halves of the same whole.
Demand planners are the yang - they're outward-facing, dynamic, focused on reading market signals and predicting what customers want. They live in the world of possibilities and potential.
Supply planners are the yin - they're inward-facing, grounded, focused on what's actually achievable with real constraints. They live in the world of reality and execution.
Neither can exist effectively without the other. Yet for years, many companies have been trying to run their operations with just the yang side cranked up to eleven.
"So What?"
Here's my take: Demand planning without strong supply planning is just expensive guesswork.
You can have the most accurate demand forecast in the world, but what if you can't respond to it properly? If your supply planning is weak, you're merely creating beautiful PowerPoint presentations about opportunities you cannot capitalise on.
I've seen companies with demand planning teams that could predict snow in December (I’m Southern Hemisphere), but their supply planners were stuck with spreadsheets and prayers, trying to figure out how to make it happen.
What Smart Companies Know
The recruitment change that Katherine is sensing isn't just a trend - its companies correcting a fundamental imbalance. They're discovering that:
Execution is just as valuable as prediction – You can forecast demand; but can you deliver it?
Supply constraints shape demand more than you admit - Your capacity limitations define your growth potential
Risk lives on the supply side - Supplier disruptions, capacity bottlenecks, inventory shortages - these are supply planning problems
The best IBP/S&OP processes I've seen treat demand and supply planning as equal partners in a continuous conversation. Demand says, "here's what the market wants," supply says, "here's what we can deliver," and together they find the sweet spot that maximises both revenue and operational efficiency.
The Integration Imperative
Here's where it gets more interesting: the companies that are really nailing this aren't just hiring more supply planners - they're redesigning how demand and supply planning work together.
Instead of demand planning creating a forecast and throwing it over the wall to supply planning, the best organisations have them joined at the hip. They plan together, problem-solve together, and own the outcomes together.
This is what mature IBP/S&OP looks like - not demand planning with some supply planning tacked on, but a genuinely integrated approach where both sides balance each other out.
The Simple Truth
The surge in supply planner recruitment isn't just about filling roles - it's about companies understanding that good IBP/S&OP requires balance.
You can't optimise what you can't execute. And you can't execute what you haven't properly planned for.
My challenge to you: Look at your own IBP/S&OP process. Are your demand and supply planning functions truly balanced, or are you still trying to stand on one leg?
What's your experience? Are you seeing the same shift toward recognizing supply planning as equally critical? Have you tried integrating demand and supply planning more closely? I'd love to hear your perspective.
And a shout-out to my recruiter friend who sparked this thinking - sometimes the best insights come from the people placing the talent!
Want to learn more? Visit me at www.planninglab.co.nz
#IBP #SupplyChain #DemandPlanning #SupplyPlanning #IntegratedPlanning #BusinessTransformation