Using modern technology in Inventory Management

Getting the inventory right, and getting the right inventory positioning for retailers has always been the challenge. Optimizing inventory means that retailers must organize things in order to have just enough goods to cover the needs of the customer.

Storing excess inventory can not only lead to quality problems such as degradation and potential obsolescence but also increases overall cost for the retailers. Simultaneously, insufficient/out of stock inventory can have a damaging effect and can affect more than just the bottom line.

The typical business challenges that result from an out of stock situation include:

•         Loss of Sales resulting from customer walk-outs
•         Customer Attrition and loss, as there is always a high chance of customer walking to another store
•        High Inventory Carrying Cost

Inventory management systems must competently accomplish your company's required service levels at the same time keeping inventory costs as low despite fast-changing economic conditions, high demand uncertainty and shorter product life cycles. 

Modern technology is changing things and with tailor-made solutions such as Cloud enabled SHELFMonitor from Tech Mahindra which mines sales and inventory data by store, from disparate systems, and delivers alerts on mobile phones.This solution could further extend beyond the real time alerts to a more predictive and prescriptive analytics solution for planning and operations.