Sage North America announced the availability of Sage Inventory Advisor, an affordable cloud solution that integrates with Sage ERP systems to provide companies with a daily diagnostic of inventory, reduce time spent on forecasts, and resolve the optimal investment required to achieve target fill. As a cloud-based subscription service, Sage Inventory Advisor is fast to implement and accessible in a web browser and on mobile devices. With powerful forecasting and planning capabilities, Sage Inventory Advisor is currently available for those businesses running Sage 100 ERP, Sage 300 ERP, Sage 500 ERP and Sage ERP X3. To help inform product design, Sage recently surveyed its customers to understand the magnitude of the problem of inventory:
•       42 percent rated stock-outs as their primary concern for inventory management.
•       37 percent were primarily concerned by excess inventory.
•       21 percent said they spend too much time calculating reorder quantities.
“Inventory is one of the largest business expenses for a distribution or manufacturing company,” said Joe Langner, executive vice president, mid-market solutions for Sage North America. “How well businesses adjust to demand and manage their inventory has a significant impact on the amount of capital invested in stock and associated warehousing costs. Eventually, the cost of inventory impacts the bottom line dramatically.”
Designed for mid-market companies engaged in any type of inventory management, such as wholesale distribution, manufacturing, and retail trade, Sage Inventory Advisor integrates with Sage ERP systems and analyzes inventory data to identify where the biggest improvements can be made, produce quality forecasts, and suggest optimal replenishment recommendations in minutes. Sage Inventory Advisor provides “what if” simulation in an intuitive, graphical user interface that makes analysis and forecasting faster and easier.
During our early adoption and testing phase, customers have successfully:
•       Reduced excess inventory by up to 15 percent.
•       Improved fill rate by up to 10 percent and eliminated stock-outs.
•       Reduced time spent on forecasting by 50 percent.
•       Freed up 15 to 20 percent of their capital invested in stock to invest in strategic areas of their business and increase profits.
“We’ve been making a concerted effort to integrate processes, building vehicles to put data into the cloud, which then sync to mobile devices and back office ERP,” continued Langner. “With Sage Inventory Advisor, we’re enabling businesses to leverage their own internal data for inventory management that will help them make better business decisions.”