Demand Budgeting in a Service Enterprise

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Demand budgeting.

Once the discussion with customers has begun around services, this is the essential next step. Imagine working with a restaurant for meal delivery. Service discussions mean that we offer and want customers to order things like “ lasagna and side salad”. But if demand planning continues the “GL Account” way, then the conversation would go like this: “Today for lunch I want lasagna and a side salad. Tomorrow I am expecting company, so I will want 3lbs of ground beef, a pound of noodles, a head of lettuce, two tomatoes and 2 cups of ricotta. *“

You can see that this is not only MORE awkward than 100% component discussions, it works against the enterprise making the shift. In order to become a service based organization, services need to be the unit of discussion at all phases of the conversation. This means creating a shift in process and tools so that you can have a relationship and ongoing conversation with customers about how the value they are getting out of your current services are shifting.

Demand should not just be a conversation around adding or decreasing heads in the organization, but should be a discussion about the bottom line business value of services and how shifting business goals may impact the demand for those services.

Struggling with how to get the conversation started? Check out this whitepaper:

*yes, I know this is not the real recipe for lasagna

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