To achieve that, the manufacturer of wide-format printers, needs a truly collaborative environment and consolidated planning. Roland is relying on the RapidResponse tool from Kinaxis to help it realize that goal, Pekar says. The Kinaxis tool already has connected company data worldwide, and provided transparency and accurate reporting across the organization.

The company-wide transformation that Pekar speaks of required a change in mind-set. “That was critical in the process, and I’m very happy to say that now we have a full sales and operations process, we have people coming together to search for information, and it’s all based on RapidResponse. It’s been valuable, and we have lots of other plans to build on this data platform.”

Pekar dismisses criticism of S&OP as a minor process. “The key factor for us was to bring the sales and operational sides together because we were a very fragmented organization with silos, and the RapidResponse tool has brought these sides of the business to the same table to make decisions.”

Roland DG deals with business-to-business transactions of industrial equipment. Its sales cycle is fairly long, but it provides a full solution of consumables and spare parts. Responsiveness to customer needs is very important. “Being able to see the entire process and the visibility of the data helps us tremendously to respond to all those needs,” says Pekar. “Being able to see the changes in demand and being able to respond to it on a single platform is extremely important.”

Roland DG is building Internet of Things functionality into its equipment to enable it to do maintenance and repair in a proactive and predictive way. “The transparency that RapidResponse provides will optimize those efforts,” Pekar says.

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