Apr 01, 2022
Inventory is essential for the growth and success of any business. From the CFO’s perspective, inventory falls under current assets on the balance sheet. In fact, inventory is the most liquid asset in your business after the cash. For marketers, it is synonymous with one of the Four P’s of the marketing mix – product. It refers to all goods, merchandise, materials, or items held by a firm to sell to customers. No product-oriented business will generate sales without inventory or stock – it’s the engine of your business. However, unless you manage your inventory, your business won’t succeed. Inventory management is a process of controlling the buying, storing, and selling of products. It enables you to track all your products to maintain optimum quantities at your store or warehouse to avoid overstocking or understocking (aka stock outs).
So, why should marketers care about inventory management? Here are the 6 key advantages of best-in-class inventory management and how it enables sales and marketing to increase their impact:
Increased Sales
Increasing sales is one of the primary goals of any business organization. With sales, you’ll be able to pay for your expenses and boost profits. That’s why every business owner is trying to generate more sales. One of the best strategies to increase your sales is developing a good inventory management strategy. It allows you to track or monitor your inventories to avoid stockouts. Besides, inventory tracking helps to provide customers with accurate lead times to boost their satisfaction. It leads to repeat customers, thus increasing your sales. Make sure you purchase the best inventory tracking tool in the market.
Enhanced Ordering Process
You must ensure you’ve got the right inventory quantities at your store to grow your business. Overstocking holds your capital which could have been used in other activities. Besides, excess stocks may attract extra storage costs. On the other hand, under-stocking may lead to missed sales. You can even lose customers due to frequent stockouts. Avoid this by managing your stock. With an effective inventory management system, you can figure out exactly how much stock you need to have at a particular time. Apart from that, such a system will enable you to set a specific re-order quantity level to avoid excess inventories and shortages.
Organized Warehouse
A warehouse is crucial to your supply chain management. It is where you store your goods before taking them to your shop. For the smooth running of your business, you must organize your warehouse. You’ll find it challenging to manage your stocks with poor warehouse organization. Avoid this by developing a working inventory management system using best-in-class supplier management software. For instance, you can decide to put the most moving products in easily accessible locations in your warehouse. It allows you to quickly re-stock your shop to avoid goods missing from the shelves. Organizing your warehouse is one of the best strategies to avoid stock outs, improve delivery times and keep customers satisfied.
Increased Business Productivity
If you want to boost your business revenues, you must promote the productivity of your workers. You can achieve this by building an automated inventory management strategy. Your workers will take a lot of time to complete tasks using manual inventory management systems. It harms the productivity of your business in the long run. Most modern inventory management systems utilize tools like barcode readers when feeding product data into computers. This new system enhances workers’ efficiency and productivity.
Improved Customer Experience
Customer experience is an essential element of your business. It refers to customers’ perceptions of the product and services you provide. A company with a bad customer experience won’t succeed. So, you must find ways to enhance your customers’ experience. One of the best ways to enhance customers’ experience is by developing a good inventory management strategy. It ensures customers get what they’ve ordered on time. It also improves their experience. For that reason, they’re likely to remain loyal to your brand, allowing you to generate more sales.
Save Time and Money
Another advantage of a good inventory management strategy is to save time and money. Note that you can waste much of your time when you decide to track your stocks manually. With a good inventory management system, you can feed data to your business systems automatically. It helps save a lot of time. At the same time, most manual inventory management strategies can attract a lot of costs. For instance, you’ll need to hire several workers to enter data into your computers, which increases labor expenses. You could have avoided this by creating a good inventory management strategy. Such a system will allow you to save time and money.
The Takeaway
Marketers who are succeeding today have figured out how to tell a compelling story and deliver the brand’s promise at every touch point across the customer experience. Access and availability of product inventory forms an integral part of your business and your brand’s promise to your customers. Inventory management processes either enable you or constrain you in boosting your revenues and profits. The right inventory management software systems must be in place to assure that your go-to-market strategy can be executed with ruthless consistency. To learn more about creating the foundation for transformational marketing for your business, download a free copy of our ebook: Transformational Marketing: Moving to the TopRight.
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