What is Integrated Business Planning – and why does it matter?

That’s where Integrated Business Planning (IBP) comes in.

IBP enhances S&OP by connecting operational plans with financial strategy, allowing simulations and supporting long-term, data-driven decision-making. It answers not just whether we can deliver but also whether we should and what it will cost.

Watch the video below to hear Stephan Skovlund explain the value of IBP, and how it can help your business move from reactive to proactive planning. This recording is from Industrimässorna Öresund 2025 in Malmö, where Roima Intelligence shared expert insights on the future of supply chain planning.

Traditional S&OP focuses on the next 3–12 months. It’s primarily about aligning demand with available supply and ensuring internal collaboration between sales, operations, and supply chain.

IBP goes further by connecting planning with finance. It helps organizations evaluate the full business impact of planning decisions on profitability, working capital, capacity, and risk. For example:

• What happens to gross margin if demand increases by 30%?
• Can suppliers meet the demand spike, and at what cost?
• Will we run into space or capacity constraints?

IBP allows companies to answer these questions through data-driven simulation and scenario analysis, not guesswork or Excel spreadsheets.

According to Stephan Skovlund, Partner at Roima Intelligence and one of the founders of Perito Consulting (now part of Roima), IBP helps companies move from tactical firefighting to financially intelligent planning.

“IBP is a bit like how Warren Buffett would run your supply chain,” Stephan says.

It’s about profitability-first thinking – backed by data, transparency, and cross-functional collaboration.

Instead of fragmented, Excel-based processes, IBP gives your organization:

• End-to-end visibility from suppliers to customers
• Simulation capabilities to model future scenarios
• Governance and transparency in planning behavior
• Economic stock optimization for better inventory decisions

Here are some of the most impactful use cases:

1. Simulating forecast changes: See how a change in demand affects production, inventory, lead times, and bottom-line results.
2. Improving governance: Identify where planning behavior is based on habits or fear, such as consistently overstocking slow movers, and replace it with data-driven rules.
3. Optimizing safety stocks: IBP uses simulation-based methods to calculate safety stocks for items with irregular or low sales volume, something traditional ERP systems struggle to support.
4. Linking planning to financial metrics: Every inventory, capacity, or promotions decision can be evaluated regarding gross margin, working capital, or available warehouse space.

Many ERP systems support transaction management and MRP well, but lack the capability for advanced scenario simulation. Excel, meanwhile, offers flexibility but becomes fragile, opaque, and overly dependent on individual users.

IBP systems like PERITO IBP are built for heavy simulation and forward-looking analysis. They sit on top of your ERP and give you the tools to evaluate trade-offs, test assumptions, and optimize performance across thousands of SKUs, locations, and planning decisions.

IBP doesn’t replace S&OP – it extends and strengthens it. It helps companies bridge the gap between planning and finance, align decisions with strategic goals, and manage uncertainty.

Whether you rely on spreadsheets, struggle with high inventories, or just want to make better use of your planning data, IBP offers a clear path forward.

Roima Intelligence delivers powerful IBP capabilities through our PERITO IBP platform – helping manufacturing and supply chain organizations make faster, smarter, and more financially sound decisions. Contact us.