The biggest challenge was the company not utilizing technology properly. Too much of the work was still being recorded manually, which meant that the numbers took a long time to note down and then to be analyzed. Live data was also not available and decisions can only be made after all the required data and been received. This was holding them back; they knew they could corner more of the market if they had the ability to be more mobile. The work addressed three critical issues for the company.:

• Improve sales and operations and production planning:

  The teams focused their efforts on a few of the highest-value S&OP levers in order to review the current planning process, identify gaps in the planning infrastructure and analytically understand demand and supply variability.

• Determine the right inventory level:

  With hundreds of medications in the market, the company needed a proper method to predict and manage their inventory. Using a mean absolute percentage analysis (MAPE), the teams defined appropriate levels for raw materials and finished products by mapping actual versus forecasted sales on the most important SKUs.