Good Practices for Controlling a Company’s Inventory

Controlling a company’s inventory is a vital activity. It represents the source of supply to meet business demand, which ultimately means that it is one of the most important activities for the organization to deliver on what has been promised to its customers.

Therefore, it is of great importance to define clear strategies and maintain the attention of the responsible team in performing an efficient management of the stock, aligned with the organizational objectives. This becomes all the more essential because it is a process with several challenges to be overcome and of great impact on profitability.

Let’s look at some practices that can help you with your inventory management and open doors for better results.

Control the Stock

Inventory turnover is among the key indicators for controlling enterprise stock. Basically, it measures the number of times the stock has been renewed in a given time interval. That way, you can gauge if you have maintained an optimal volume of items.

If stock turnover is high, it means you have an efficient operation, where products are not “stuck” on the shelves. In this way, the capital of the business remains free for investments in other aspects that produce return to the organization, rather than fixed assets.

Work with Security Stock

One of the great objectives of inventory control is to prevent missing units for customer service. Therefore, one of the main tools to meet such a requirement is the security stock.  This is a quantity of items calculated as surplus to the zeroed stock. Thus, when it arrives at the resupply point, which is the minimum acceptable stock for new units to be ordered, the request is made and, in addition to the volume of items required until the new consignment is received, there should be a quantity for covering unforeseen, such as delays.

Invest in Technology

Technology is a central factor for any business today. It has become an indispensable item for the development of a series of activities, which includes inventory management.

Some examples of contributions that it brings in this case are specific programs to develop the steps involved and various possibilities of process automation. Therefore, this is one of the main ways for the consistent control of its inventory operation.

Attention to Valuable Items

Another good practice involved in inventory management is validity control. It is necessary to find ways, if possible automated, to ensure that you only work with items within the ideal condition of use, which excludes overdue items.

Many techniques help in this process and one of the best known is the FIFO, acronym for First In, First Out, which in free translation means “First to enter, first to leave.” Basically, it advocates that the items should be used depending on their arrival in the stock, releasing first those who arrived first and reducing the possibility of maturities.

Analyze the Usage Profile of each Item and Assemble a Rational Stock

Our sixth tip refers to logistic factors, as is the case of displacement. The more an item is sued, the more it will be taken off the shelf. This indicates that it is better that the most used items have a lower access distance than the lesser used items.

This is just one of the principles that must govern the assembly of the business inventory layout. No matter how simple items look, many organizations overlook their potential gains and lose large amounts every year, thanks to the small losses that accumulate and become gigantic losses over time.

So the trick is: work for a rational stock.

Integrate Processes Associated with Inventory Control

The last good stock control practice we want to highlight is process integration. The activities of each department of a company are interrelated and must be conducted in an integrated manner to generate synergy.

Therefore, the ideal is for you to evaluate, for example, the impact of sales on your stock which, in turn, will affect your financial control.

A great way to have this comprehensive view and maintain accurate control of the entire chain is to use an ERP. It is a software specially directed to offer a virtual interface of your organization and to enable a broad management of your processes.

By: GestãoClick

5 Mistakes to avoid in customer management

The Customer is the most important part of a company. Companies make a lot of mistakes when it comes to dealing with customers and their needs, and these mistakes often lead to the loss of important customers. In today’s article, we talk about the 5 mistakes to avoid in managing customers.

Press Customer

Many companies make the mistake of chasing the customer, either through phone calls or emails. When there is a first contact, you have to give the customer time to evaluate the possible purchase of the product or service offered by the company. No one likes to be constantly bothered and companies need to be made aware that the quality of the contact is worth more than the number of times they contact prospects.

Not knowing the customer and their needs

One of the worst mistakes in managing clients is treating all customers the same way. It is unpleasant when we are attended by an operator who seems robotic and who has a rehearsed speech and does not escape the script. CRM tools help companies to know each customer, their needs and preferences. They also provide information on the most appropriate time to act, either by sending a special campaign or a product sample. You can connect a CRM system to a business monitoring system such as Multipeers. In this way, you will have real-time and always up-to-date information about your customers.

Sell ​​only once

Many commercials are concerned only with the single sale and don’t work towards customer loyalty. Certainly, the first sale is, in theory, the most difficult, since the customer still doesn’t know the company and the products. Focusing on the single sale is a very common mistake that can cause the company to lose sales in the future. Business teams should be concerned about maintaining customer contact in order to guide you toward future purchases and this is achieved through good after-sales service.

Complicating customer service

Unfortunately, there are many companies specializing in this field, especially telecommunication and internet service companies. It is very annoying for a customer to have to repeat their problem to three or four different people. The customer service should always be as pleasant and short as possible because only then can you pass on an image of professionalism. If the customer needs to talk to four people before seeing their problem solved, they will get the feeling that the company is disorganized.

Don’t guide and educate the client

Providing relevant and useful content to the customer about the products or services is a way to educate customers and share important information so that they choose your product. Creating a FAQ section, creating a blog about the area of ​​your activity and having a regular presence on the main social networks are good ways to educate the customer about your product.

Real-time marketing strategies for your business success

Consumers are increasingly demanding and less patient: they want to find solutions and want to find them now! Nowadays, it is no longer enough to launch good content or a good marketing campaign: you have to be the first to have the idea that will solve the problems of consumers and offer something really different. The “now” is the trend of the moment and because of this rush to have solutions come up concepts such as real-time marketing. In today’s article, we are going to talk about real-time marketing strategies for the success of your business.

Events

An event launching a product with real-time monitoring of consumers’ opinions on social media is a great way to find out how much people are receptive to the new offering. It is no longer enough to make a report after the event happens. It is necessary to accompany the second what consumers are thinking about the new product in order to fine-tune strategies.

Location-based advertising

Nowadays, many companies already advertise their services based on location. Through the GPS system, consumers receive information about restaurants, hairdressers and other services near the area where they are. In this way, it is much easier to get the attention of potential customers because they are in the vicinity of the service.

Analysis of consumption forecast

This strategy is widely used in e-commerce. Anyone who enters into online stores realizes that there is an intelligence behind that tells us related or complementary products regarding our searches. The goal of this real-time marketing strategy is to conduct cross selling and increase the average value of the purchase. Process automation, integration with databases and analysis of these data are essential tools for implementing this strategy.

Real-time data analysis

Launching campaigns and promotions is important to promote products and brands, but if there is no real follow-up in real time it is not possible to take the insights needed to make decisions. BAM tools like Multipeers are imperative in today’s business reality, as they allow you to analyze in real time what goes on in each of the business areas. Through a simple, informative dashboard, you can see if a product’s sales are increasing because of a specific campaign.