New Tool Simplifies Inventory Analysis for Wholesale Distributors

MITS®, leading provider of advanced reporting and analytics solutions, today announced an important new inventory analysis tool for wholesale distributors using the Epicor (formerly Activant) Prelude distribution management system.

The Prelude Inventory Hypercube consists of a specialized, analytics-tuned data collection culled from inventory data in Prelude, that enables business users to quickly and easily perform a wide range of inventory analyses.

"By having the right inventory stocked at the right place, in a timely manner, distributors can significantly improve business performance in a number of areas," says Fred Owen, MITS President. "Better-managed inventory means lower cash requirements, reduced operating costs, improved service to customers—and higher profits."

Invaluable inventory insights uncover opportunities, deliver fast answers.

Used in conjunction with MITS Discover, the company's advanced, online analytical processing (OLAP) solution, the Prelude Inventory Hypercube gives business users two key views of inventory data: profitability, or Return on Asset, and inventory quantity and value across branches, vendors, product lines and an array of other dimensions.

"Most importantly, the Prelude Inventory Hypercube lets distributors analyze and maximize their return on the biggest investment they make," says Owen. "Every distribution business, no matter how successful, has a product, location, vendor or other area that can perform better. This Hypercube lets them spot those performance areas and determine how to improve them."

With the new solution, distributors can identify issues and opportunities such as:

· A low-profit product that's being carried in overly large quantities

· A high-margin product line that suffers out-of-stock problems or turns over too slowly

· A branch or location with unusually low—or high—Gross Margins or Gross Margin Return on Investment (GMROI).

Branch managers, purchasing agents and line buyers will typically use the new solution on a daily basis, Owen says.

"They'll spot shrinking stock levels, product line weakness, and specific winning and losing products," he adds. The solution will also help highlight where valuable space can be reclaimed, and pinpoint slowdowns in high-value stock—either company-wide or at specific warehouses or branches.

Finding the needle in the haystack—automatically.

Products like Prelude, Owens adds, are "superb at what they're designed to do—capture and manage operational data and transactions." But efficiently extracting critical information from the systems can be time-consuming and cumbersome, leaving opportunities and problems hidden.

"MITS Discover and the Prelude Inventory Hypercube solve that problem," he concludes. "Now, business managers and analysts can find out where the hot spots are, and then deal with them quickly, because the system does all the searching and sifting for them."

MITS Discover is a mature, state-of-the-industry analytics solution used by hundreds of organizations worldwide. The new Prelude Inventory Hypercube is already in use at key customer sites, and is available for licensing now.