The FIVE Options for Supply and Demand Planning Tech

Every ops leader eventually faces the “how do we level‑up planning?” decision.

With tariff uncertainty and shifting supply chains, this has become more urgent: teams are spending more time in their spreadsheets, creating scenarios, and trying to figure out the business impacts of rapidly reacting and adapting supply chains.

We see FIVE typical options for ops leaders and teams at brands - each appropriate for a certain kind of company:

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📝 DIY Spreadsheets. Great if you’re a scrappy early‑stage brand (typically <$25M revenue) that needs total flexibility and has more hustle than headcount – and you’re fine burning nights in Excel. You’ll iterate fast, own every formula, and pivot on a dime. Just know you’re also signing up for 50% manual effort, version‑control chaos, and no good way to fully optimize.

🛠️ In‑House Build. Great if you can dedicate a full‑time engineering squad to supply‑chain tooling - companies like Tesla, Wayfair, and Amazon have made these investments. You’ll tailor every nuance, integrate directly with internal systems, and iterate as priorities change. Upside: perfect fit. Downside: recruiting, carrying the payroll, and the constant political battle to keep the team from getting redeployed onto other projects. For most brands, the cost of tying up five–ten engineers is unimaginable.

🏢 Traditional Planning Suites. Great if you’re a Fortune‑500 with deep pockets and a “do it once, lock it down for a decade” mindset. Big vendors bring everything and the kitchen sink, plus armies of consultants to customize workflows. Expect 12–18‑month rollouts, multi‑million‑dollar invoices, and a black‑box engine that few planners truly understand or can control. Works if you measure projects in years, not sprints.

⚡ Out‑of‑the‑Box SaaS. Great if you have a simple product catalog and mainly want to automate data pulls. Fast start, good dashboards—but you’ll still run side‑car spreadsheets for the nuanced stuff. Many teams adopt, plateau at a 50% solution, and slide back to Excel for “real” planning.

🚀 Atomic. Great if you’re a high‑growth CPG or DTC brand that needs Big Tech Company–level sophistication without Big Tech Company–sized headcount or timelines. First‑pass views in < 24 h, full deployment ≈ 8 weeks (1 h/week of your team). Planner‑in‑the‑loop control—override anything, audit everything. The most sophisticated models, precision control, and the ability to rapidly run different scenarios and compare them side‑by‑side—no black boxes.

Speed, control, and long‑term maintainability—pick two? Or pick Atomic and get all three.