Customer Centric Inventory Optimization

Inventory Optimization for Wholesalers

The connected commerce revolution has brought a tectonic shift in power from companies to customers. In today’s intensely competitive world, the need for outstanding customer service levels has never been more critical. Inventory availability is central to developing and sustaining the highest service levels, especially for key accounts.

Business leaders everywhere are beginning to realize that a superior inventory optimization strategy is a competitive advantage. Executing requires an integrated demand forecasting and replenishment solution that synthesizes customer data and aggregates it with impact analysis from promotional events for forecasting.

Customers rely on wholesalers’ ability to optimally replenish inventory in order to seamlessly deliver on the commitment for product availability – anytime, via any channel and anywhere.

To help your most valued customers succeed, wholesalers can now leverage the unified capabilities of Manhattan Customer-Centric Inventory Optimization (CCIO). As part of our industry-leading Demand Forecasting and Replenishment solution, CCIO provides demand planners, buyers and inventory analysts the tools to identify, isolate and analyze key customer insights and deliver the most efficient replenishment service levels. Outstanding customer service is only possible when the customer value chain is unified through a coordinated partnership between wholesalers and their customers.

What is Customer-Centric Inventory Optimization?

Increasing demand complexities call for a set of solutions to help demand planners, buyers and analysts understand why an exception occurred and identify the corresponding source of any additional demand and the correlated impact to inventory levels.

Was it a one-off demand spike? Has the customer consistently been ordering more? Is the source from a new customer? Answers to these questions were previously not immediately available and were not easily accessible.

CCIO truncates the lead time and incremental IT resources typically required to identify the causes of demand exceptions. By providing access to customer-specific buying information, CCIO reduces the steps to see their replenishment patterns. Planners gain access to customer insights and relevant SKU-level data within Manhattan’s Demand Forecasting and Replenishment, accelerating the decision-making cycle.

Armed with that information, planners can quickly decide if the forecast needs to be adjusted due to a demand exception, or if seasonal profiling is required. This is data-driven, strategic inventory management at light speed.

Improve Service Level With Insights for Growth

For most organizations, the old business adage rings true: 80% of your business comes from 20% of your clients. CCIO helps identify your key customers, isolate their demand patterns and analyze data using a unified forecasting method. The result is a more prescriptive, more effective replenishment strategy designed specifically for connected commerce.