by Mark Tomalonis
Principal, WarehouseTWO, LLC

Your outside sales people will LOVE this “Stock Request” form! Eh, maybe not so much.

You know how much they enjoy paperwork. ;-)

But if you are responsible for inventory management, and you find it hard to say “NO” to an outside sales person’s casual request that you put something into stock even though you have never sold it before, then YOU may love this form, and the simple process that goes with it.

What? Printed documents that are filled in manually, and then passed around and filed??? What are we thinking? No worries. The purpose of this article is to present business process concepts and examples of process forms. How you implement these ideas and forms, and whether you do so using printed documents or paperless forms, is up to you. We chose to present printable forms for instant deployment by those who are comfortable with managing such “classic” technology.

I. Why Have a Formal Stock Request Process?

What personality traits make for successful sales people? “Optimism”, “self-confidence” and “willingness to take risks”. Add to that mix “lack of attention to detail” and “lack of accountability” and the result is over-exuberance to put new items into stock. But putting an item into stock that you have never sold before is risky. An effective way to support a sales person’s sales efforts, while minimizing the chance of buying future surplus inventory, is to create a formal stock request process with supporting documentation. The benefits of a formal stock request process include:

• Objectivity in determining whether or not to purchase items speculatively
• A method of recording and tracking the results of a stock request
• A tool for measuring a sales person’s success rate in predicting future sales

To read the complete article click on this link with more informtion on how to:

II. Implement a Formal Stock Request Process

III. How to Review Stock Requests

IV. “Gotchas” to a “Stock Request” Process, and How to Mitigate Them

V. Who Will Create the Forms for Your Company

For more information on WarehouseTWO's inventory-sharing solution (integrated with Tribute and TrulinX software) visit www.warehousetwo.com.