The Dangerous Disconnect Between Sales and Operations

After more than 30 years in supply chain, I’ve seen one challenge rear its head time and time again, regardless of industry, company size, or region: the disconnect between sales and operations.

It’s one of the most persistent problems in the business world and is far more than just a communication issue. When sales and supply chain teams operate in silos, the result is missed revenue opportunities, unreliable promise dates, costly last-minute fixes, and disappointed customers. I’ve seen companies with great products and talented teams lose millions because their sales pipeline and operational planning weren’t aligned.

And here’s the truth: it doesn’t have to be this way.

Where Things Go Wrong

Sales teams are under pressure to close deals and hit quotas. They’re focused on pipeline, pricing, and customer relationships. Meanwhile, operations are trying to ensure raw materials are in stock, production is optimized, and deliveries happen on time. Both groups are doing their jobs, but they’re using different tools, working off different data, and aiming at different targets.

Sales might promise a 3-week delivery. Ops finds out too late that it’s really 6 weeks, and then the scramble begins—air freight, overtime, inventory juggling—and costs explode. Or worse, the customer cancels the order and moves to a competitor.

That’s not a process problem. That’s a systems problem.

How Salesforce + ketteQ Closes the Gap

At ketteQ, we’re tackling this disconnect head-on. One of the reasons I joined this company’s journey is that we’re doing it in a way I’ve never seen before—by building supply chain planning directly on Salesforce.

Salesforce is already the system of record for most sales teams. What ketteQ does is bring adaptive supply chain planning into that same environment to streamline the data acquisition process, which frees up more time for decision support in a time-constrained process. That means the data sales reps enter—the opportunities, the timing, the value—can now directly inform forecasting, inventory planning, and delivery commitments.

We call it planning every possibility. Because with our agentic AI-powered PolymatiQ™ solver, we’re not making guesses—we’re running thousands of simulations in real-time across sales and supply chain.

Seeing It in Action: Trimble Transportation

One of my favorite examples is Trimble. They had sales managing the pipeline in Salesforce and demand planning in spreadsheets. I’ve seen that setup hundreds of times. It always leads to friction, rework, and inaccuracies.

When Trimble deployed ketteQ—within just a few months—they saw a 5% productivity boost for their sales team and much better forecast accuracy. Suddenly, sales updates weren’t trapped in a silo—they flowed directly into demand plans automatically. That kind of alignment makes a massive difference.

Real-Time Delivery Dates at ACG

Alliance Consumer Group (ACG) had a simple but powerful need: tell customers when their order would actually arrive. Before ketteQ, that meant a lot of back-and-forth emails and delays.

Now, when an opportunity in Salesforce hits a certain stage, ketteQ generates a promise date instantly—based on current supply constraints, lead times, and inventory. That information doesn’t just sit in sales—it drives execution across the organization.

That’s what real collaboration looks like.

Closing the Loop at Cosmetica Labs

Cosmetica Labs manufactures cosmetics for some of the biggest names in beauty. New products are constantly being launched, and timing is everything. Sales need to align with production.

By using ketteQ on Salesforce, they connected their sales cycle with supply chain planning. Now, changes in demand, BOMs, or supplier availability flow across both teams in real-time. Forecasts are more accurate. Customers get what they need when they need it.  

Let’s Stop Accepting the Disconnect

I’ve worked with legacy systems that made alignment nearly impossible. I’ve managed teams that had to guess what sales were promising. I’ve watched planners scramble to make sense of outdated spreadsheets.

But I’ve also seen what’s possible when companies bring sales and operations together on a single platform using the same data and planning tools. That’s what Salesforce + ketteQ delivers.

We’re not just improving forecasts—we’re changing how teams collaborate. We’re giving sales and ops a shared language and a shared system.

And the results? Better service levels, higher revenue, lower costs, and happier customers.

If your sales and supply chain teams are still playing catch-up with one another, let’s talk. There’s a better way—and I’ve seen it work.  

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