IP^Mark
Benchmark Inventory Productivity

With profit margins under pressure, now more than ever it's important for retailers to make their inventory asset more productive. That means more aggressively managing inventory levels without losing sales. That is a difficult task. Even in your organization today, there's no doubt a debate over which products and where to add inventory to realize more sales, or whether to reduce inventory to contain costs. It's a perpetual question that hasn't been effectively answered as current measures can tell you where you are but do a poor job in illustrating the trade-offs in getting to a more profitable inventory/service position.

Unleashing the Profit in Inventory
We can help. 4R Systems has developed IP^Mark, a benchmarking methodology that applies 4R's inventory productivity metrics to your business. As a result, you will be able to assess your current inventory productivity as well as rigorously quantify the opportunity that can be realized through profit optimizing the inventory asset.

Capitalizing on the groundbreaking research of our founders, Marshall Fisher of The Wharton School and Ananth Raman of Harvard Business School, 4R's metrics unmask the relationships between inventory investment, sales performance and profitability. More importantly, these metrics provide clear guidance on how to manage the trade-off in inventory levels and sales to optimize the profitability of the inventory asset.

We achieve this through a two-tiered approach:

Quantitative benchmark
IP^Mark incorporates a quantitative review that applies sophisticated metrics and simulation techniques to assess how effectively your inventory asset is performing, as well as the payoff that can be realized by better managing inventory to drive profitability. Using your sales history, supply chain parameters and economic information (price, cost, etc.) to calibrate our models, we will provide:

Historical simulations Finds the "sweet spot" that optimally balances demand and inventory Provides a direct comparison to actual execution—positions you versus the ideal tradeoff curve Extrapolated results Determine the benefit of better inventory allocation for the entire applicable business

Qualitative benchmark
IP^Mark incorporates a qualitative review of current retail and distribution inventory management practices. 4R's highly specialized team will interview your personnel in order to understand your company's business processes, financial objectives and information infrastructure. Through this we gain a thorough understanding of your replenishment challenges and opportunities and identify how these areas can be aligned to drive inventory profit optimization.

Deliverables include: Process review Opportunity identification Value/complexity assessment Low hanging fruit Biggest payoffs Next steps	Marketplace comparison Position relative to competitors
Recommendation as to where you should be heading What do you need to start doing to get there? What is the potential ROI?

There's a Big Opportunity Available to Profit-optimize Your Inventory
Getting started is easy—just give us a call. We look forward to helping you define the magnitude of your profit opportunity—as well as the effective inventory strategies to get you there.