Collaborative Demand Planning
Align Sales, Marketing, Finance, and Supply Chain around one trusted demand signal — without sacrificing speed or accountability.
Collaborative Demand Planning on the o9 Digital Brain enables cross-functional teams to co-create, reconcile, and commit to a single, transparent demand plan, powered by shared assumptions, real-time collaboration, and AI-driven automation.
The problem traditional planning can’t solve anymore
In most organizations, demand planning is still a coordination exercise rather than a decision-making advantage. Sales, Marketing, Finance, and Supply Chain often operate with different tools, timelines, and incentives. Forecast inputs are collected late, assumptions are unclear, and accountability is diffuse. The result is not just inefficiency — it is missed revenue, excess inventory, and avoidable service risk.
As markets become more volatile, this fragmentation becomes increasingly costly. Demand signals change faster than traditional monthly or quarterly planning cycles can absorb. Teams spend more time reconciling numbers than acting on them, and critical decisions are made using outdated or incomplete information.
Market Trend: The One-Number Forecast
Leading organizations are responding by shifting toward a One-Number Forecast. Instead of maintaining separate demand views for Sales, Finance, and Supply Chain, they align around a shared demand baseline that supports all downstream decisions.
This does not mean forcing every function into the same level of detail. Sales may plan at the account or customer level, Finance at a revenue or budget level, and Supply Chain at SKU-location. Collaborative demand planning ensures these perspectives remain connected, reconciled, and explainable — so the organization moves forward with confidence rather than compromise.
o9 enables this shift by:
1
Aligning Sales, Finance, and Supply Chain on a single demand baseline
2
Preserving functional detail (e.g., account, SKU, region)
3
Making assumptions and trade-offs explicit and traceable
What this solution enables
Advanced AI/ML-Powered Forecasting Engines
AI/ML-powered baseline generation uses a mix of statistical models and machine learning to identify leading indicators (e.g., pricing, weather, promotions), improving forecast quality and adaptability.
Scenario Modelling & What-If Simulations
Integrated what-if scenario modelling and impact simulation help planners understand potential forecast outcomes and make risk-informed decisions.
Consensus-Driven Demand Planning
Enable Sales, Marketing, Finance, and Supply Chain to work from a single, shared demand signal with full transparency into assumptions, changes, and downstream impact. This replaces sequential handoffs with real-time alignment and faster consensus.
Flexible Granularity with Automatic Reconciliation
Allow each function to plan at the level that matters most — customer, market, revenue, or SKU-location — while automatically reconciling all inputs to a common demand baseline. This ensures meaningful comparisons such as Forecast vs. Budget without manual effort.
Gap Closure and Action Planning
Identify gaps between the demand forecast and business targets, then simulate and execute initiatives such as pricing, promotions, or marketing actions to close them. Ownership and impact are tracked to ensure collaboration leads to measurable outcomes.
Supplier and Partner Collaboration
Extend demand collaboration beyond the enterprise by sharing forecasts, commitments, and inventory signals with suppliers and OEM partners in real time. This improves responsiveness, reduces risk, and enables earlier action on both shortages and upside opportunities.
What Makes o9 Different
AI/ML driver-based forecasting
o9 makes assumptions explicit by allowing planners to define volumes, constraints, and business logic at any level of the hierarchy. These assumptions are tracked cycle over cycle, making forecast changes explainable and auditable.
Assumption-Driven Planning
Planners are guided to the few demand intersections that matter most based on impact and urgency. Centralized alerts drive accountability and faster resolution without reviewing thousands of line items.
Hyperautomation and Touchless Planning
Routine consensus steps such as baseline generation, reconciliation, and workflow progression are automated end to end. Human judgment is applied only at volatile, high-value decision points.
One-Number Forecast Alignment
o9 enforces a single, reconciled demand signal across Sales, Finance, and Supply Chain while preserving functional planning granularity. This eliminates competing forecasts and creates shared ownership of the demand plan.
Industries Supported
Powered by the o9 Digital Brain
Collaborative Demand Planning runs on the o9 Digital Brain, powered by the Enterprise Knowledge Graph (EKG).
The EKG acts as a digital backbone, connecting data, processes, and decisions across the organization. It breaks down silos by modeling relationships between products, customers, markets, and financials, enabling a shared understanding of demand.
Built on open standards such as Apache Hadoop and Spark, the platform integrates seamlessly with existing enterprise architectures and supports both structured data and unstructured tribal knowledge.
Modular by design, enterprise by default
o9 accelerates implementation through configurable building blocks that can be tailored to unique business requirements.
Core Building Blocks
Collaborative Demand Planning
Enables cross-functional teams to align on a single, shared demand forecast with transparent assumptions, reconciliation, and accountability.Integrated Business Planning (IBP) Foundation
Provides the common data model, workflows, and governance needed to connect demand, supply, financial, and strategic planning.
Advanced Building Blocks
Key Account Forecasting
Supports account-level demand planning by incorporating customer-specific signals, commitments, and commercial insights.Deal & Project Planning
Enables forecast and capacity planning for large, non-repetitive deals or projects with long lead times and high uncertainty.
Pre-built industry templates provide packaged logic and workflows that reduce time to value while remaining fully customizable.
A digital operating model for VUCA conditions
APEX is o9’s AI-powered operating model for enterprises navigating volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA). It enables organizations to plan, execute, and learn as one connected system.
The o9 Digital Brain powers APEX by connecting enterprise data, knowledge, and decisions through a single intelligent model.
Collaborative Demand Planning is one of the building blocks of the Digital Brain. It contributes domain-specific capabilities into the enterprise-wide model that enables APEX from the ground up—linking this solution to decisions across the entire value chain.
→ Learn how the APEX Operating Model works
Where AI drives real decisions
Artificial intelligence enhances collaboration by reducing friction and improving decision quality.
Generative AI enables natural-language interactions with the plan, allowing users to adjust assumptions or scenarios conversationally while automatically documenting context and rationale.
Natural Language Processing (NLP) captures planner comments and notes, embedding tribal knowledge directly into the planning process instead of losing it in emails or meetings.
Agentic AI uses digital agents to perform analysis, generate reports, and monitor signals in parallel, freeing planners to focus on high-value work.
→ Learn more about o9 AI innovations
Results in real-world complexity
ABinBev
By leveraging o9’s integrated planning platform, AB InBev replaced legacy systems such as SAP APO with a single, cloud-native solution, streamlining demand forecasting, supply planning, and inventory management.
The transformation enabled a 60% reduction in out-of-stocks, a 53% decrease in inventory losses, and a four-year high in service levels. Additionally, planners experienced a 30% time savings, while touchless planning adoption reached 70-90% across key markets.
60%
Reduction in Stock-Outs
53%
Decrease in Inventory Losses
90%
Touchless Planning Adoption
Kraft Heinz
7,000 SKUs across multiple regions, Kraft Heinz partnered with o9 Solutions in North America and Europe to implement an advanced ML forecasting platform, collaborative demand planning solution, and a sales planning module.
This initiative resulted in an 11% increase in Monthly Forecast Accuracy, a 14% increase in Weekly Forecast Accuracy, a 20% reduction in safety stock levels, and a 32% reduction in time spent on forecasting.
10%
Increase in Forecast Accuracy
25%
Decrease in Excess Inventory
32%
Reduction in Time Spent on Forecasting
What our customers say
"We made the conscious decision with o9 to bring a quicker ROI by integrating with our legacy SAP. [...] When the full ERP transformation happens, we’re ahead of the game."
Paul Tips
Product Owner at Canyon Bicycles
"What's really succeeding with us is the idea of the connection to the data and a best-in-class UX/UI, so the people that use the business can really make an impact."
David Almeida
Chief Strategy & Technology Officer at Anheuser-Busch InBev
"With o9 AI/ML-based forecasting in place, we’re already seeing improved forecast accuracy, stronger cross-functional collaboration, and faster, more informed decision-making—all within a centralized platform."
Gaby Gutierrez
VP of Global Supply Chain Planning at Amway
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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Collaborative demand planning is a cross-functional process where Sales, Marketing, Finance, and Supply Chain jointly create and agree on a single demand forecast. It replaces siloed planning with a shared, transparent view of demand, aligned to both market signals and business objectives.