Improving forecast accuracy through collaborative planning at Natra

The challenge

Natra, a 78-year-old Spanish chocolate and cocoa derivatives company with operations in more than 90 countries, faced significant challenges with their demand planning process. With over €410 million in turnover and more than 1,000 employees across six plants, the company struggled with several critical issues. Daniel Molina from Natra explained:

"The track of the historical information was quite complicated. It's a company where the artworks of the products, the claims of the products, and small changes in compositions happen quite often and many times are required by the customers, and therefore the SKUs are continuously changing."

Key challenges included:

• Difficulty tracking historical information due to frequent product changes
• Unable to clean sales data from abnormal demand, promos, peaks, and out-of-stocks
• No official forecasting tool - only an Excel file with add-ins called "the demand tool"
• Poor forecast accuracy with limited commercial team involvement
• Lack of visibility to management on future demand and potential gaps

The solution

In early 2021, Natra set a goal to have a constrained demand plan for the next 18 months for the whole company, based on statistical models using cleaned historical data and enhanced by market intelligence from the commercial team and customers.

Working with Keyrus, they implemented an Anaplan-based solution in phases:

Phase 1 (February-May 2021): Built dashboards for demand planners to create draft proposals using statistical models and historical data cleansing.

Phase 2 (May-December 2021): Integrated the commercial team into the process, creating workflows from demand planners through to chief commercial officer approval.

The solution included:

• Historical data cleansing: Ability to understand and clean product history despite continuous SKU changes
• Statistical forecasting: Automated calculations using algorithms with best-fit selection
• Cross-functional adjustments: Demand planners can make expert adjustments and include new product listings, renovations, and phase-outs
• Collaborative workflow: Monthly pre-demand review meetings between planners and account managers, followed by regional demand review meetings
• Management visibility: Aggregated forecast discussions involving demand planning manager, supply chain director, regional directors, and chief commercial officer