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Top Five Don’ts of Inventory Management and Supply Chain Optimization

Some companies know exactly what they’re doing when it comes to managing their inventory. Their entire supply chain is geared towards benefiting from collaborative efforts.

Vendors are managed like partners, inventory strategies are aligned, stock outs and shortages are minimized, freight costs are under control and the company clearly defines its costs of holding inventory relative to the costs of not having inventory. Sounds pretty simple doesn't it? For some companies it is, for others it isn't.

B2B Purchasing Negotiation: Five Strategies to Reduce Vendor Prices

In my sales career, I have come across hundreds of buyers who excelled at negotiation. Some of these procurement professionals were naturals, while others had to work on their negotiation skills. Ultimately, the best negotiators combined an innate ability to reduce prices with a relentless drive to secure the best terms.   

Here are five cost-cutting negotiation strategies purchasing has used against me in my business development career. These negotiation strategies are simple to understand, easy to use, and guaranteed to lower your company's costs.  

Five B2B Cost-Cutting Supply Chain Strategies Any Company can Use

There are two ways a company can increase profit margins. The first includes having a proactive sales team that is well trained in negotiation and uses that training to maximize gross profit on sell prices.

The second includes making sure your company is adopting some simple cost-cutting supply chain strategies, ones that allow you to increase profit by eliminating inventory cost drivers.

Five B2B Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) Strategies: Pros & Cons for Vendors

Vendor managed inventory is a fairly simple concept that involves placing inventory of raw materials and finished goods at your customer’s location and then managing the inventory counts accordingly. However, while it may sound straightforward, it’s the execution itself that sometimes confuses vendors. So, to help, here are five VMI strategies you can use when looking to manage stocking levels at your customer’s warehouse.

Five Mistakes Business Owners Make That Kill Growth and Destroy Profit

Taking your company to the next level is never an easy thing to do. However, it’s worse when you intentionally shoot yourself in the foot. Somehow, someway, you’re bound to make a mistake. It’s the nature of owning and operating a business. Fortunately, some of your mistakes are easily avoided: You identify the error and remove it as a going concern. However, there are other less obvious mistakes, ones that continue to repeat themselves and ones that directly impede your company’s growth. What are these common mistakes and how can you correct them?

Calculating Economic Order Quantity (EOQ): Not Buying Too Much or Too Little

Your economic order quantity is the ideal amount where your company’s inventory holding costs and your company’s purchasing costs are minimized. Ultimately, it’s about avoiding those situations where you’re either buying too much or not buying enough. Ideally, you want to have just enough to cover sales, but not so much that your costs of carrying inventory are too high. Companies that need to calculate this ideal quantity typically turn to a well-established EOQ formula. 

Five Costs of Low Inventory: How Being Too Lean Can Cost You

Most companies assume that lowering inventory levels is a good thing. These companies believe that reducing how much they hold within their warehouse will ultimately help them to lower costs. Unfortunately, it simply isn’t true. These companies fail to recognize that there are two main categories of inventory costs: There are costs that come from holding too much inventory and there are costs that come from not having enough inventory. Here are five reasons why low inventory counts are rarely, if ever, a good thing. 

10 Simple Solutions for Selling to Uncreditworthy Customers

Nothing is worse for a salesperson than to have an opportunity to close a sale and not be able to simply because the customer doesn’t qualify for credit. However, selling to uncreditworthy customers need not be a painful process.

There are some simple solutions that can help you get that new relationship off on the right foot. It’s merely a question of matching up the solution to the new customer you’re pursuing. Don't let your customer's credit problems stop you from winning business.

Advertising Isn't Marketing: It is Just One Part of Your Marketing Strategy

I once worked with a company who constantly confused advertising with marketing. It was a sudden shock to them when I explained that advertising is something you do after you’ve done marketing, or put differently, after you've defined your market's opportunities. Unfortunately, all the company was doing was randomly placing advertisements in trade publications in the hope that some customer, somewhere, would notice. Advertising isn’t marketing; it's just one piece of the puzzle.

Top 5 Pareto Principle Applications in Business: A Simple Rule That Affects So Much of What You Do

The Pareto principle is one of those universal rules of business that has far-reaching implications for today's enterprises. It can help companies mitigate risk by allowing them to identify potentially dangerous outcomes of existing strategies. The focus is simple: Be proactive instead of reactive. The rule originated in 1906 from Vilfredo Pareto, an Italian economist who found that 80 percent of land in Italy was owned by 20 percent of its population. How does this apply to businesses?