Should you redesign your demand planning process before changing tools?

No, and doing it in that order often backfires. A process redesign built around the current tool's constraints bakes those constraints into the target: a monthly cycle, a consensus review, a shared file. If the new platform recalculates forecasts every week and the plan every night, part of that process loses its purpose.

The most effective sequence is to run business scoping with the vendor during the first phase of the project, once teams have seen what the tool can do on its own. That does not mean showing up unprepared: mapping flows, listing supply constraints and identifying key users are all worth doing upfront, and they speed up the project considerably.