What does an Inventory Analyst do?
Inventory analysts work in the retail, wholesale, distribution, and manufacturing sectors. They help the organization's management navigate inventory purchases, resource allocation and to forecast future sales. Their goal is to maximize the organization's production. Inventory analysts manage inventory items and control the day-to-day inventory operations while implementing an agreed-upon inventory control protocol.
Inventory analysts maintain and improve inventory by analyzing statistics and determining products that sell and that don’t. They place inventory orders, track shipments, and allocate inventory to the correct department when it arrives. They arrange for pickup and shipment and perform extensive research on various inventory-related reports, including previous inventory reports and national purchasing trends. They direct buyers and stock workers and perform regular inventory counts. Inventory analysts need a minimum bachelor's degree in supply chain management, business administration, marketing, or related fields.
- Recommend process changes or system enhancements based on findings.
- Develop strong partnerships between data engineering, finance and other business functions.
- Troubleshoot and resolve issues that arise during conversion, working in collaboration with the conversion team, operations and relationship management.
- Prepare weekly, monthly, and annual summaries related to inventory accuracy.
- Communicate with supporting departments to ensure on-time delivery.
- Act as a liaison between teams in order to achieve established production goals.
- Compile, analyze, and evaluate data to inform financial revenue projections and support an aggressive growth strategy.
- Play a lead role in converting mid and large market plans.
- Perform more complex testing activities in the planning, controls testing and reporting phases in accordance with established standards.
- Participate in the planning and execution of testing in compliance with the company testing framework and within defined time frames to support department metrics.
- Identify and report on issues and trends. Escalate for review.
- Contribute to customer and client satisfaction and deliver value to internal and external customers.
- Assist in any follow up research to assist the investigation.
- Identify root causes and disconnects to help management develop resolutions to inventory inaccuracies, work order release issues, aircraft cost variances, material flow issues and manufacturing positions with regard to the master production schedule.
- Prepare general ledger reconciliations for all inventory and cost of goods accounts.
- Work closely with applicable entities to coordinate and assist timely and accurate resolutions to associated production and inventory processes.
- Identify and analyze recurring critical path items to mitigate impacts to the production schedule. Implement solutions to help remove barriers in order to improve production rates. Respond to problem issues from customers and initiate actions to minimize negative impacts.
- Analyze and track material deviations to include cannibalization from aircraft or inventory, diversion of assets, material discrepancies, receiving discrepancies, quality issues and in-house completion processes.
- Communicate your findings effectively and follow through to help drive improvements.
- Manage numerous assignments, identify priorities, and exercise good judgment.
- Bachelor's or Graduate's Degree in business, business administration, computer science or information technology, or equivalent experience.
- Comfortable problem solving and decision making using leadership and time management skills.
- Fluent in enterprise resource planning and root cause analysis.
- Demonstrated strong work ethic and strict attention to detail.
- Experience with SQL and Infor EAM software and systems.
- Able to interface with teams and conduct control testing.
- Confident at all times.
Inventory Analyst Salaries near United Kingdom
Average Base Pay
Inventory Analyst Career Path
Learn how to become an Inventory Analyst, what skills and education you need to succeed, and what level of pay to expect at each step on your career path.
Years of Experience Distribution
Inventory Analyst Insights
Hubert Burda Media“Pretty good pay and I have to work on the weekend but I’m gonna go home to do my laundry”
Canadian Tire“Multiple times I cried but thankfully was able to push through and I did learn alot.”
Kohl's“One of my favorite parts of this job has been the amazing people I've been able to work with.”
The TJX Companies, Inc.“I worked with a great team who helped me learn so much during my time.”
Kimberly-Clark“The People that are involved in the Day to Day are some of the best most helping people around.”
Canadian Tire“fantastic manager and one of the buyers I worked with was fantastic.”
Great Lakes Coca-Cola Bottling“People are great and helpful.”
Guaranty Trust Bank (Nigeria)“You will survive and I think resilience is a skill highly needed in today's work place.”
Frequently asked questions about the role and responsibilities of an Inventory Analyst
- Inventory Manager
- Inventory Control Specialist
- Demand Planner
- Operations Manager
Get anonymous career insights from your peers
Salaries in Tech
The comments expressed in this bowl are opinions of members.
I was promoted a few months ago and was just informed that my annual performance review is canceled and no annual raise will be awarded since I received a promotion this year. Is this normal?