The five steps of inventory management are demand forecasting, inventory tracking, stock replenishment, order management, and reconciliation. Together, these steps ensure that products move efficiently from suppliers to customers with minimal waste and error.
Most operators follow these steps manually across disconnected systems — pulling spreadsheets, exporting CSVs, and matching line items by hand. The process works at low volumes but quickly becomes unmanageable as inventory complexity grows.
How to Manage Inventory Effectively
To run these steps efficiently, teams need a single source of truth that connects real-time data from ERP, WMS, and e-commerce platforms.
- Forecast demand using historical data and sales trends.
- Track inventory at SKU and location levels.
- Replenish stock automatically when thresholds are reached.
- Manage orders to align purchasing and fulfillment.
- Reconcile data across systems to maintain accuracy.
Following this structure ensures visibility and agility across your supply chain.
How It’s Done With Parabola
Parabola allows operators to automate each stage of the inventory management cycle.
You can pull SKU-level data from systems like NetSuite, Shopify, and Snowflake, merge and transform datasets, and automatically flag discrepancies or low-stock items.
Flows can be scheduled to refresh data daily or hourly, keeping dashboards and reports fully aligned.
Real-World Examples of Inventory Management Automation
Hundreds of Parabola users are currently using our AI-powered workflow builder to automate their inventory management processes. Below are four real stories, from real customers.
- How Great Jones uses Parabola to increase their supply chain data visibility
- How Seed scaled operations and saved 500+ hours a year with Parabola
- How Rhone doubled their operational capacity with Parabola
- How Magic Spoon is building an automation-first culture and saving 500+ hours a year