Do your electrical supply
customers order the same product over and over, but your salesforce remains disorganized and unaware of customer demand? Do you have salespeople who don’t call upon your customers on time to take advantage of such predictability? Do you lack a precise method for replenishing your inventories to meet customer demand and prevent stock-outs?
If you answered yes to even one of these questions, chances are that you are putting your survival at stake and jeopardizing your ability to operate effectively. Lack of awareness of customer demand and the resulting neglect on the part of your salesforce, not to mention frequent stock-outs, can lead to serious cash-flow problems and a disastrous impact on your profitability.
But these problems can be avoided with an investment in an integrated inventory optimization system feeding data to what we call a “Sales Gap Analysis” report.
Consider a report showing projected sales for each electrical supply customer by period, based on historical sales data, the actual sales for that period, and the “gap” or difference between the two. Such a report can help you take advantage of potential sales opportunities by empowering your salesforce to use it in conjunction with other gap analysis reports.
Before a customer calls you to reorder the same product, your salesperson will have done their homework to initiate the conversation, and maximize your sales potential. You are showing that you really care about your customers, and they have a reason to be loyal.
There are other uses of a Sales Gap Analysis report as well. Failure to keep track of what you have in stock, what has been ordered by customers and from vendors, as well as the minimum quantities for each item, can be cause for frequent stock-outs as well as customer dissatisfaction due to inability to meet customer demands. For this reason, the Sales Gap Analysis report can also be used by your purchasing department to keep a check on your inventory and for ordering adequate supplies of popular items before they run out.
Please find the original version of this post at NetStock.
