Inventory management can be a key processing factor in the profitability of a business. It is significant in day-to-day operations and business objectives for both the present and future. Thus, ensuring you have the right system in place for the management and distribution of inventory becomes crucial to your success. Inventory solutions can vary depending on the nature of your business and industry but share one commonality: Inventory management can help enhance your business’s performance. 

If inventory management has not been a high priority or concern of yours until now, we encourage you to read further. In this article, we explore how poor inventory management systems can actually damper your efforts and lead to business losses.

Inadequate Forecasting 

Your sales team must have accurate forecasts to create realistic baselines of inventory flow. If forecasting is inadequate, it can lead to stock-outs, excessive stock holding, or a fluctuating turnover. If your demand planning team does not have actual numbers to produce, order or store, it will affect your customers and lead to poor sales.

Outdated Tracking 

Stock-taking has evolved. Whether your business is small to medium-sized or a large corporation, businesses these days rely on more than manual counting and so should you. The error rate increases drastically with manual counting, whereas using systems such as inventory management vending machines can immediately provide you with accurate data.

Access Control 

Similarly, your business may utilise systems such as spreadsheets for data collection and storage. While this can still be effective, it requires constant monitoring and minimal access. Bad inventory management processes are sometimes composed of spreadsheets that can be opened by several different employees. The difficulty also increases once you try to reconcile stock at the end of the month to match what is highlighted on such systems. 

Inventory management can always be improved to avoid stockouts, frequent errors and out-of-control spending. It can be crucial in retaining customers, attracting new ones, and meeting delivery lead times.

Stock Locker provides innovative inventory solutions and inventory management vending machines, which can help elevate your operations for the better. Learn more about various options tailored to your business’s needs.