Your product is a hit! Maybe it even went viral. There’s nothing but smooth sailing and green pastures from here.

Excitement builds as you watch your traffic jump. Your ROAS numbers look amazing and conversion is beating your expectations. Your supply chain manager meekly raises their hand, and then you get the dreaded call from the warehouse: “we’re out of stock.”

Supply chain management is all about just the right amount at just the right time so here’s 5 Costly Mistakes Growth Stage Businesses routinely make.

1. Failure to recognize small changes against forecasts: Actively monitoring the success or miss to the forecast can quickly consume or build up inventory positions. Being nimble and able to quickly analyze both the past, and the future therefore becomes critical to the success of a business in a high growth stage.
2. Too much and too little inventory: Buying too much puts excessive strain on cash flow, eliminating the ability of the business to quickly react to changing demand. Too little and the business is missing opportunities resulting in higher customer acquisition costs.
3. Over dependence on key employees: Early employees can be fantastic resources as problem solvers, often going above and beyond the initial tasks built for their roles. These employees can then become the core fabric of the business, representing risk should they choose to depart.
4. Not understanding when to buy: A critical combination of understanding how much and when along with the cost implications will have a significant operational impact.
5. Processes and systems that can’t scale: As the business grows, so do the complexities. Excel models that were functional in the early business stage result in inefficiencies. Each of those inefficiencies cost the business resources in hours.

Predictive SCS provides cloud-based software solutions and consulting services to address supply chain management challenges faced by growing businesses. Learn more.