Three speakers identify the core inventory mistakes companies make regardless of technology. Most treat inventory as pure cost, use year-end adjustments to hide problems, and miss using it as a supply-chain risk buffer.
I think what we have seen is post-COVID, a lot has moved towards digitization, which has also led to the growth on the way consumers buy today. So you feel, you see now that more and more people are buying online, right? And that has also led to a little bit of the dynamic nature in which the demand fluctuates.
But before we start talking about technology and AI, what core fundamentals do companies, do you think, still get wrong When it comes to inventory management? Again, regardless of the maturity of the technology that they use, what do they get wrong when it comes to inventory management here?
I mean, I think one of our biggest issues that seemed a bit changed during COVID but somehow came back, is we still see a lot of time inventory as either a cost or immobilized cash on on our balance sheet. And we somehow lost a bit this conception that inventory is what defines the final edge in operating supply chain, is the final risk management we can do. We still do a lot of window dressing of our numbers. And I guess that's common, especially with publicly listed companies. We still do a lot of quarterly window dressing, year-end inventory lending, etc. Whereas the effort done in placing the inventory where it really matters, so we can really risk edge our risk, somehow lost a bit of steam the more we went into the old practice of keep reducing this inventory.
So let's talk about the 3 fundamentals which most of the companies still get wrong.
