As an HVACR distributor or manufacturer having strong local inventory near the end customer and where they work, is the most important factor for growth.
As a long-time distributor, I know we all talk about “our people” as being the driving factor for growth, and that is true. We could not service our customers without our great people, but I have worked for distributors where we had great people, but poor inventory management. We were not as successful as we should have been because our people could not overcome our inventory failures.
Same Day Inventory positions with the proper breadth and depth of SKUs, is crucial and is often the difference between winning and losing.
Your end customers are on site on hot or very cold days servicing end customers who need to get their system back up and running now. Your contractor customers can’t wait for next day delivery, they have to have it today and as quickly as possible.
If inventory is that important to success, then why don’t we invest in training our people to be the best inventory management professionals possible. That is why HARDI’s inventory certification programs are important for the channel and crucial to support.
I think often in our business we just hire a smart person, get them hooked into the ERP, and then hope they figure it out. We skip over giving that person we invested so much in the proper training to be as successful as possible.
HARDI Inventory Management Certification Program is one way to help your inventory management associates build a foundation of inventory best practices to help you win more often.
HARDI Inventory Manager Certification Program – Starts on September 9th, 2024
HARDI’s Inventory Manager certification program provides a practical approach to managing your inventory – equipping you with the tools necessary to assess your current inventory performance and processes, identify gaps, understand best practices, and ultimately implement them to align working capital with customer experience.
HARDI’s Inventory Manager Certification Program focuses on five competency areas: Service vs. Inventory trade-off, Fill Rate (Product Availability) Metrics, Item-level Profitability, Inventory Stratification, and Inventory Risk Mitigation.
If you focus on the 5 competency areas listed above there are clear profit and sales inventory levers for growth and profit improvement.
For example: if you improve your first-time fill rate for “same day” items that can be a huge top line sales growth driver. It comes with some tradeoffs of course as it may drive up your inventory carrying costs. Local in stock “same day” item availability is crucial for HVACR as the failure and repair rate for commercial and residential is much higher than for other channels such as electrical and plumbing.
The importance of Item level profitability, inventory stratification, and inventory risk mitigation are huge to your bottom line as distributor. These same 3 factors are crucial for manufacturers to understand and work with the channel to improve. Manufacturers do not want to deal with returns on slowing moving inventory. They can’t afford to have their distributors have numerous stock outs on their products as it hurts their cash flow and brand position with end customers.
“We have been fortunate to work with hundreds of inventory professionals at distributors over the past 20 years, and what we have learned is that managing inventory is more than just having an A, B, C, D ranking system if you want to be successful.” said Senthil Gunasekaran HARDI Certification leader
Pradip Krishnadevarajan HARDI Certification leader also shared that “One the big reasons we hear why distributors and manufacturers love the HARDI Inventory Management Certification program is that it is very hands on. We work as a group through real world examples and scenarios with the participants. It helps them develop skills to win, and they also build relationships with others so they can share best practices and help each other improve.”
I think that best practice sharing and networking is crucial for inventory management professionals to improve. The greatest improvements personally I made were when I moved from one distributor to another, or we added a teammate that came from another distributor. That outside thinking and best practices helped us improve as team.
That was how you networked and got new ideas, and the only other way you could do that is by joining a certification type program from a leader like HARDI.
That is why I would recommend you consider a HARDI certification program for yourself or a teammate. I would recommend you check the four great programs they offer at www.hardinet.org/certification-programs
Distributors with better inventory positions, and manufacturers who have distributors with better inventory positions…win more often than those who do not.
I recommend you keep building a team with a foundation of training that will win more often.
As always, we appreciate your feedback and comments.
