Most retailers and distributors don’t do a good job of forecasting demand at the place where it really happens – fulfillment. They forecasting demand where the sale happens, vs. where customers receive products. And that has got to change.

Maintaining a proactive, accurate order quantity is the end result of great inventory management. Thanks to replenishment optimization technology, what used to be a function of tireless hours spent each day manually constructing orders is now a swift and efficient part of a demand planner’s morning.

Maintaining a proactive, accurate order quantity is the end result of great inventory management. Thanks to replenishment optimization technology, what used to be a function of tireless hours spent each day manually constructing orders is now a swift and efficient part of a demand planner’s morning.

Intelligent Price Optimization science has finally met demand forecasting automation to create a “1 + 1 = 30” value multiplier for distribution businesses. In this podcast, you’ll learn how AI-enabled Price Optimization solutions integrated with supply chain planning automation are uncovering dramatic and immediate financial results.

From soup to nuts, seasonal profile adjustment is an important – but often overlooked – part of inventory forecasting. Are your organization’s forecasting models keeping up?

Today’s consumers are busier and more health conscious. They want fresh grocery delivery, meal kits and even temperature-sensitive products like pharmaceuticals. But several retail trends are making it difficult for distributors to manage perishable inventory in a profitable way. The financial volatility of this is huge.

New item forecasting is a troubling area because of its tremendous profit impact. If a company has $50M in inventory, new items could be $5M or more of that investment. So why aren’t we putting more of a focus on optimizing them?

The best opportunity to influence your income statement is to attack the Cost of Goods. You live on thin margins, so any efforts that reduce the Cost of Goods can have a dramatic impact on your company’s profit picture.

Safety stock always seems to creep up on demand planning teams, tying up significant cash and pushing the department further under the cost-center microscope. In fact, wholesale distributors often carry up to 20% more inventory than what is necessary.

There’s a lot you can learn from the habits of today’s top inventory planning professionals.

How do they spend their day? What level of manual intervention is recommended during one’s daily forecasting activities? How do blue-chip analysts make crucial decisions?