Change in the retail industry is occurring at a breakneck pace and retailers need to take a moment to consider how emerging and disruptive trends are fundamentally transforming the business – possibly making past practices outdated and irrelevant.

A business concept that increasingly is becoming a focal point for many retailers is to provide customers with a seamless brand experience across all engagement channels – digital, store, mobile, social and perhaps many others to come.

However, there are significant operational implications for one of the most important assets on a retailer’s balance sheet: inventory.

Managing your inventory is almost becoming a fine art –

Effective inventory management would require a core team of planners and allocators for various engagement channels, which is expensive and time consuming. New technology is now in place to help retailers manage inventory effectively and on time with just a few taps.

Managing the stock – getting it right –

Too little inventory can lead to unsatisfied consumer demand and missed sales opportunities, whereas too much can reduce margins, as deep markdowns become necessary to clear obsolete products.

As a consequence, retail managers may not be able to use traditional methods to gauge improvement in inventory turnover since customers increasingly engage with and purchase from any channel.

The role of tech –

You need the agility, flexibility, and interoperability of tech-forward inventory and operations platforms to gain the supply chain transparency and operational efficiency needed to maximize profitably while meeting the demands of today’s customers.

By syncing all your accounting, purchase orders, sales channels, POS systems, warehousing, shipping and fulfillment technologies, SaaS programs can streamline your existing tools into a customized, automated, and scalable workflow.

This kind of automation and centralization are enabling growing retailers to accurately track inventory and business data across all sales and fulfillment channels. Having purchase orders, stock counts, sales data, and shipping and fulfillment information in a single location has helped customers improve inventory and operational efficiencies.

Modern software removes much of the day-to-day supply chain challenges and decisions, because inventory decisions are based on proven algorithms rather than guesswork or costly trial and error.”

Do you know how much your current inventory processes are truly costing you? Get a free demo to see how inventory management can be centrallised and thereby providing the efficiency and visibility your business needs for success.