3 quick fixes to improve your inventory management

Spring clean your inventory

Many organisations provide customers with a huge selection of products in order to satisfy the various needs. However, managing large assortments is hugely time consuming and can come at a great cost to the business.

Given that the level of risk also increases with the size of the assortment, there is no point investing time, effort and money into products that add no value to your business. Thus, given that disruption could impact supplier relationships, or worse, demand from customers, it is vital that steps are taken to minimise your exposure to risk as much as possible.

Which items in your assortment give the most value to the business? Which item only costs you money? Through undertaking a carefully considered ABC-analysis, you can gain valuable insight into your assortment. This in turn will help you make more informed supply chain decisions as well as focus your attention to where it is required most.

We are always thinking ahead to the next season where, no doubt many new items will be introduced. Given that some older items may now be left with decreasing demand, now is the perfect time to conduct an audit of your assortment.

Hint – you can’t improve your approach to inventory management until you understand how the land lies

Eliminate obsolete stock

After reviewing your assortment, you will likely find that a number of items no longer sell. While you have invested valuable capital into these items, holding them will only cost you money. So how can you painlessly remove these items from your assortment?

Eliminating waste takes great courage. While there is no question that holding high levels of obsolete stock is bad for business, removing these items from your operation is often easier said than done. To help you make this decisions, we have put together a simple 4 step guide to managing obsolescence.

Collaborate with your suppliers

Minimum order quantities, lead times and even reliability of your suppliers all have a major impact on your inventory. Evolving trade deals could radically change how you work with your suppliers. What can you do to establish stronger relationships with supply partners? Where do you begin?

Even for organisations with the most efficient of internal operations, finding ways to work more effectively with suppliers can unlock hugely lucrative performance improvement opportunities. Through taking steps to monitor supplier performance as well as share information more effectively, you can strengthen your negotiation position, assess and drive down supply chain costs.

The last couple of year’s may have presented you with some big challenges, however, there are plenty of ways businesses can help themselves by reviewing and improving the way that they work. These are just three examples that our network of over 1200 customers have adopted to set the basis for improved inventory management.