Join Jeff and Sarah for your weekly direct materials news for supply chain folks working for a small or mid sized manufacturer. Jeff Brown is the talent. Sarah here to keep the convo going. Topic for today's show: demand planning and budget prep.Here's what Jeff is going to delve into: 1. EVERYTHING in supply chain starts with a good demand plan. Hard to have a good supply plan without a good demand plan. You'll likely will have to help the demand team (sales?) with this. Use 1) statistical demand as well as 2) historical demand as baselines. Then start layering in forward looking drivers of demand surges or dips: marketing promotions, seasonality, new product launches, competitive challenges, etc. This is always challenging as you often hear your company doesn’t know how many promotions it might have until they know Q1 or even Q2 is complete. Then they start to add a big sales push. Finally, you have to add corrections for forecast accuracy.2. Confirm that you have either of 2 things: a 5 yr strategy plan or an operations plan for next year. You’ll need to abide by these or your work might drive these to be revisited / amended.3. Supply Plan: offer the “menu of options” - don’t let next year's supply plan or inventory rest solely on your shoulders. In the spirit of collaboration, offer a “menu of options." Run 3 - 7 scenarios of the build plan numbers by your heads of finance, sales and supply chain.