When a brand runs out of stock, the first question in most meetings is: what happened in supply chain?
It is often the wrong question.
Supply chain plans from the forecast. In most markets I have worked in, that forecast comes from the commercial team. If it is wrong, everything after it is wrong too: a stock-out on one brand, expiries on another, and cash sitting in a warehouse.
What I ask of my teams:
Own the demand forecast. Commercial signs it, not only supply chain. The people closest to customers see demand first.
Build it on sell-out. What pharmacies and hospitals actually bought from the distributor, not what we invoiced last month. Sell-in can hide stock waiting at the distributor.
One number, every month. Commercial, supply chain and finance in one meeting, agreeing one forecast.
Share changes early. A tender result, a launch date moving, a competitor out of stock. Tell supply chain the day you know, because lead times are long.
And one thing we never do: push extra stock into the distributor to cover a forecast miss. It rescues one month and damages the months after it.
“A stock-out is usually a forecast problem before it is a supply problem.”
Lesson 3 of 3 in Step 6: Working across functions, with the full guide and a checklist for this week.