Competitor shortages in the plan, on top of SAP IBP – a pharma case
Case summary
A pharma company already ran its demand plan in SAP IBP. The plan was well set up and well run. What it could not read was the information that moves pharma demand most suddenly: a competitor that runs out of stock, or stops production.
That information existed. The company kept it in files on competitor stock-outs and production stops. Turning it into a number for the right products and the right weeks was manual work, and it usually reached the plan after the orders did.
Deep Sensing was added on top of SAP IBP, not instead of it. It reads the shortage information, links each event to the products it touches, turns it into an uplift for as long as the shortage lasts, and ranks it on the planner’s list. The resulting baseline was compared against the existing SAP IBP forecast.
Company context
In pharma, when a competitor cannot supply, pharmacies and wholesalers switch to an equivalent product. Demand for that product rises for as long as the shortage lasts, then falls back. The timing matters as much as the size: plan too late and the shelf stays empty; plan too long and the stock stays behind.
A statistical forecast cannot see this coming. There is no history for a shortage that started last week.
The starting point: the plan found out from the orders
The SAP IBP forecast ran on order history and statistics. A competitor’s shortage showed up only when the orders did: a jump in demand, a manual override once the jump was visible, and a discussion about how long it would last.
The shortage information itself sat in files that nobody had time to turn into numbers, product by product.
What Deep Sensing does on top of SAP IBP
- Picked up. Each competitor stock-out or production stop is read as it comes in, whatever its format.
- Linked. It is matched to the company’s own equivalent products, markets and customers.
- Turned into an uplift. The engines put a number on it, per item and week, for as long as the shortage is expected to last. Same data, same answer.
- Ranked. It lands on the planner’s list next to everything else, with the reasoning attached. The planner decides.
SAP IBP stays the planning system the team works in. Deep Sensing adds what it could not read.
Where they are today
Competitor shortages reach the planner as decisions, ranked by impact, instead of as surprises in the order book.
The SAP IBP plan stays in place. No replacement project, no new planning system for the team to learn: Deep Sensing on top of the one they already run.
More on how Horizon reads competitor and market signals.
