The ability to identify market trends is essential to good demand planning and a prerequisite to excellent performance in the manufacturing and retail industries. Consumer Driven Planning (CDP) for Microsoft Dynamics AX provides the insight you need to develop a detailed sales budget right down to the product and account level, create reliable sales forecasts, and plan for every shift in channel requirements. Increase sellouts with strategic promotional campaigns, and reduce lost sales by optimizing inventory levels along the entire distribution chain and replenishing stocks in a timely manner.

CDP for Microsoft Dynamics AX provides industry specific advanced planning functionalities for Retail and Consumer Packaged Goods companies that need to increase the availability of products in stores and distribution centers, while balancing and optimizing stock inventory levels.

CDP for Microsoft Dynamics AX is built on the Microsoft platform and works smoothly with the Microsoft Dynamics AX solution. Robust integration with Microsoft Office programs enables you to analyze and share data easily across the value chain and helps you make smart business decisions. By coordinating demand planning with supply chain management processes, you can improve asset utilization, reduce stock levels and inventory costs, and achieve new levels of customer satisfaction.

Hierarchical, Configurable Market Modeling
Generate dynamic demand plans using hierarchical, multidimensional demand data structures. Define the products, markets, and time periods for your business, and then create detailed hierarchies for each dimension so you can model demand curves, create simulation scenarios, and forecast demand quantities at any aggregation level.

Sales Budgeting
Work collaboratively across functions to establish sales objectives and analyze performance through top-down, bottom-up, and middle-out data models. Identify quantitative or qualitative targets for future sales, and define sales budgets at varying levels of detail, including region, channel, account, product line, or industry.

Sales Forecasting
Trace expected to actual sales and use sophisticated, industry-specific algorithms to forecast future demand. Evaluate the impact of different forecasting strategies using simulation tools, and measure the error and accuracy of your forecast periodically.

Promotion Planning
Identify the best promotional events for products across multiple channels by analyzing demand patterns. Measure quantitatively the expected and actual effect of promotions on sales, including catalog promotional initiatives and their effects.

Assortment and Category Planning
Allocate the right mix of products to the distribution network and carry out intelligent allocations of SKUs to channels and stores. Define assortments according to seasonal targets, taking into account sales, margins, stock rotation, and constraints such as display space and allocation rules. Control “in-season” SKUs by detecting bestsellers, low sellers, and overall demand changes.

Inventory Planning and Stock Optimization
Analyze lead times, costs, service levels, and demand for inventory to help ensure optimum product allocation across the supply chain. Reduce overall inventories while matching customer service levels and minimizing the risk of stockout.

Replenishment Planning/Sales and Operations Planning
Define replenishment plans for distribution centers while taking into account demand and logistics rules and the impact of different inventory policies on service levels.