Sales Grew $47M

Cost Savings $84M

Risk Reduction $23M

Ad ROI Saves $38M

The Situation:

A software manufacturer requested IMS's help with a problem regarding their channel inventory. Channel inventory was continuously growing over successive quarters. This became a very large risk and cost to serve since the entire inventory was price protected and the Ts & Cs allowed very liberal and expensive return caps.

IMS approached this problem by creating a systematic tracking and measuring of inventory by SKU and by week. Then we developed exception reporting that flagged over-stocks and excessive orders, and we worked with the client to create an on-going process for reviewing inventory status and risks on a weekly basis. IMS was also able to:

•   Create scorecards internally and with retailers to evaluate results


•   Develop systematic training and incentives for inventory turns and GMROII

Benefits and Results:

•   Channel inventory dropped from 15 weeks of supply to 7


•   Sell-through increased 22% year over year


•   Inventory and cost to serve savings were $23 million first year