Out of the Inventory Planning Abyss

Changes are occurring at lightning speed for all of us today. Consumers and companies alike have to contend with minute-by-minute information and change. The Cloud – Advanced Inventory Planning – Omnichannel – Social Media and much more impact today’s businesses. The options dazzle the mind, do we stay the course or change a little or change a lot.

The need to change although necessary can be painful. The Pandemic has driven consumers and businesses into a downward spiral. Dedication, persistence and new technology tools will help bring us back to more normalcy. But it is going to take time.

Cloud applications for business are becoming more plentiful. Solutions specifically built for the web are in great demand around the world. Companies are deciding to employ a cloud model to reduce capital and operational expenditure, reduce costs, increase business agility, and boost their ability to deliver IT on demand.

Cloud computing provides you with the flexibility you need for easy inventory planning. Cloud computing today has real meaning and positive impact for companies in a true global economy. The future is that more business applications for mobile computing will be available and virtual software appliances are being developed.

When it is all said and done, most companies stay the course when it comes to inventory planning. There is fear to learning something new. Things can go wrong, lots of time to learn about new methods and ways of planning. Staying the course is felt to be safest route.

People are creatures of habit, which is one reason why spreadsheets and reports are reused from year to year. Unfortunately, after cutting and pasting information, the spreadsheet might not work the way it did before — formulas can be damaged, links can be broken, or cells can be overwritten. It is also a case of “you don’t know what you don’t know”. Meaning, people are unaware of the availability of easy to use affordable, automated inventory planning software.

One aspect that needs consideration is what are your competitors doing or likely to do?  Are they staying the course or are they adopting new methods and technologies to improve their business performance?

Using custom reports and spreadsheets as the primary method in inventory planning is doing yourself, your company, and your customers a disservice. Using precious company resources to develop custom reports for inventory management is wasteful. Reports and spreadsheets are useful but not to manage your inventory. Instead, purchase a complete advanced inventory planning and optimization solution. It will reduce your planning time by up to 90% and dramatically improve your inventory mix while lowering costs.

The Cloud and advanced inventory planning are a winning combination. These combination of technologies allows you to work smarter by easily adapting all aspects of inventory management into one advanced, simple-to-use software product any time anywhere. The software lets all levels of employees understand and use the system. Instead of having one staff member dedicated to inventory planning, any employee can quickly learn and operate the software. Utilizing existing staff helps to keep costs low while expanding their capabilities.

Advanced inventory planning and optimization software not only automates the entire planning process, it dramatically increases the positive cash flow of a company. By smartly reducing inventory investment, reducing stock-outs, decreasing expedited shipping costs, and reducing planning time all contribute to more available cash. Add to that increased sales and productivity and the gains will also lead to an improved competitive advantage.

Anthony "Tony" Robbins is an American life coach, self-help author, and motivational speaker. He said, “Change happens when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change.”

We are now experiencing that level of pain that staying the course is not in our best interests.

Learn how advanced inventory planning can help you find the cash hidden in your warehouse!