In this dynamic and competitive business environment, demand forecasting which is directly impacted by the accuracy of sales forecast is highly challenging. An accurate sales forecast can keep businesses ahead of their competitors by reducing cost and time, and increasing customer satisfaction. In case of any error in the sales forecast, the entire supply chain is affected due to overstock, under stock and increased storage cost. All this in turn decreases customer satisfaction, thus impacting the brand image negatively.
Supply chain managers need to understand the importance of freight forwarding and how it affects sales forecasting. If freight forwarding is considered while forecasting, costs are reduced, inventory levels are optimized, deadlines can be met and accurate sales forecasting can be accomplished. It is freight forwarding that helps in defining inventory visibility, bottlenecks, landing costs and transportation costs. These factors in turn help to bring you an accurate sales forecast. Learn how.
Inventory visibility
Visibility of your inventory will help you to achieve an accurate forecast. Whether it is in production, stores, warehouses or transit, you must have a clear and complete visibility of your inventory. While many entrepreneurs keep a check on the inventory in the production line, warehouses and stores, they often neglect the transit inventory. What they don’t realize is that the transit inventory is equally important and shouldn’t be neglected, or it may lead to overstock or stock out situations. Quantity of stock, landing cost and transit time should be calculated at every stage. While partnering with a reputed freight forwarder, you can rest assured to be provided with the actual status of every product in every stage of the transit.
Inventory availability
With the right forecast, you can make the appropriate product quantity available at the right time and the right place to satisfy customer demand and keep them satisfied and happy. For this, you need to analyze a variety of factors like past data, customer response and environmental situations. But, high landing costs, detained cargo, in-transit damages, shipping delay and other such factors can result in sales forecast failure. Thus, it is important to partner with a reputed and competent freight forwarder that can meet customer demand as per your sales forecast.
Consistency
Customers always want a consistent price with availability when they buy a product. They want their preferred product to be available at all times when they are in need and that too at a price they have agreed to before. They are least concerned with factors like seasonality, unavailability or anything else for that matter. Therefore, to meet all these demands, you need to collaborate with experienced freight forwarders – those that have years of experience and are reliable to deliver shipments in the committed time and at a competitive price.
So, look out for a freight forwarder that can help you achieve an accurate and confident sales forecast. Jayem Logistics is the best international freight forwarder you can approach that will provide you the best services to cater to all the above mentioned factors and much more to help you gain accuracy, consistency and customer satisfaction to the fullest.
