During the holidays, cookies are in high demand. Elementary school students are selling baked goods as part of their school fundraisers, and supermarkets and restaurants are upping their orders.
That's a good thing for Otis Spunkmeyer, a San Leandro, CA-based cookie manufacturer that has seen its revenue nearly double over the past five years. But all of this holiday season activity puts pressure on the company to reconcile sales forecasts with inventory and production operations.
Until about a year ago, Otis Spunkmeyer was using Excel spreadsheets to summarize sales forecasts for the annual budgeting process. That approach limited the number of people who could access the information. In addition, it did not always accurately reflect what the sales force was seeing and could not tie financial forecasts with production. The company was often at risk of making too few or too many cookies.
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