Supply Chain Cartoon: Is a Demand Planning team required?
- Ravi
- Dec 10
- 1 min read
Sales pipeline reviews are meant to reveal opportunities. But sometimes they reveal something else — the urge to blame the wrong teams.
This supply chain cartoon captures that classic moment when a collapsing pipeline suddenly becomes a demand-planning “problem.”
CARTOON INSIGHT
In this demand planning cartoon, the Sales Head presents a plunging pipeline to leadership. Instead of questioning sales performance, the room pivots toward the demand and production planning teams. Their nervous expressions say everything the punchline doesn’t.
This scene is painfully familiar to anyone who’s been in S&OP, forecasting or supply planning. When numbers fall, blame often travels sideways — or downward — instead of toward the source.
The humour works because it is true: Sales owns the pipeline. But Planning often owns the blame.
The presenter’s confident posture, the CEO’s deadpan reaction, and the planning reps’ worried faces create a perfect contrast. The graph plunges; morale plunges with it.
PUNCHLINE - Supply Chain Cartoon
“Looking at this sales pipeline… do we really need a demand and production planning team?”
A dry line that sums up years of cross-functional tension in one sentence.
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