“Overstock costs you money. The goal is to hold the right quantities based on real demand.”
This might feel familiar.
You want to make sure your customers can get what they need, when they need it, without leaving valuable cash tied up in products that are moving slowly or taking up space unnecessarily.
The difficulty is that the stock figure in your system may only tell part of the story.
We recently joined Hardware Association Ireland for a webinar where our Head of Enterprise Sales, Darren Gray, explored how merchants can use the stock and demand data already held within their ERP to improve replenishment, reduce overstock and make more confident purchasing decisions.
In this article, we’ll look at four practical steps that can help you build a clearer picture of your stock and make better-informed purchasing decisions.
Prefer to watch the session?
You can access the full webinar here 👇
Four practical steps:
1. Understand your true stock position
Before deciding what to reorder, you need a clear view of what will be available to meet demand.
Physical stock is only one part of that picture. Some items may already be allocated to customer orders, while more could be arriving from suppliers or moving between branches.
Darren Gray described this as effective stock:
“Effective stock is showing you what’s physically here, minus what’s already allocated to existing sales orders, plus any inbound purchase order.”
Looking at these figures together helps your buyers avoid ordering stock you don’t need or assuming stock is available when it has already been committed.
2. Keep your stock levels aligned with demand
Demand changes, so the figures guiding your purchasing decisions need to change with it.
Minimum, maximum and reorder levels are most useful when they reflect recent sales, seasonal patterns, supplier lead times and the needs of individual branches.
Darren explained how the demand recorded through everyday activity can help calculate recommended replenishment based on what you need to fulfil customer orders.
Start with a few important products and check when their stock levels were last reviewed. This can quickly show whether your current rules are still helping your buyers make the right decisions.
3. Use the information already in your ERP
Your sales, orders and stock movements are already generating useful demand data.
The challenge is making sure that information reaches your buyers in a useful form. When teams must export reports, update spreadsheets and repeat calculations elsewhere, purchasing becomes slower and harder to manage consistently.
Bringing more of that information together within your ERP can give your buyers a clearer starting point and reduce unnecessary duplication.
4. Support your buyers’ judgement
Recommended purchasing quantities shouldn’t replace buyer experience.
Your team understands your customers, suppliers and local market. The role of the data is to give them a more complete picture before they make the final decision.
With current information on demand, allocated stock, incoming supply and branch movements, your buyers can spend less time gathering figures and more time applying their knowledge.
Take the first step towards better replenishment
You don’t need to review your entire stock file at once.
Choose one high-value, fast-moving or frequently unavailable product. Look at its physical stock, customer allocations, incoming supply, branch movements and recent demand. Then compare that information with the quantity your team would normally order.
This simple review can highlight where outdated levels, disconnected data or manual processes may be affecting your purchasing decisions.
As Darren explained during the webinar, the aim is to hold the right quantities based on real demand. With a clearer view of your stock, you and your team can reduce unnecessary overstock, make more confident purchasing decisions and keep customers better supplied.
Want to learn more? Check out the webinar and other on-demand videos on our resources page here: https://www.genetiqsoftware.com/en-gb/resources