Vendor Managed Inventory Best Practices, Successes and Innovations Shared Among Consumer and Industrial Market Leaders at the 2015 Datalliance VMI Forum

CINCINNATI, OH--(Marketwired - May 26, 2015) - The 2015 Datalliance VMI Forum, the world's largest annual cross-industry gathering focused entirely on the topic of Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI), attracted attendees from a wide range of consumer and industrial markets. Attendees included representatives from suppliers, wholesale distributors and retailers. Held May 11-13 in Cincinnati, Ohio, it focused on VMI best practices and success stories, as well as innovations in both business processes and technologies across many aspects of VMI. This year's event was the 10^th annual VMI Forum hosted by Datalliance.

The Forum's program featured panelists and speakers from consumer packaged goods producers Georgia Pacific and Ocean Spray; industrial product suppliers Anvil International, Bendix, GE Industrial Solutions, Schneider Electric and Siemens; wholesale distributors BDI, Border States, Granite City Electric and Standard Electric Supply; and national retailer, Walgreens. Customer service, supply chain, inventory management, purchasing and sales professionals from 70+ companies were represented.

Session topics included "VMI Talent Development," "A Roadmap for Building VMI Relationships," "VMI: A Two-Way Street - Key Responsibilities of both Parties" and "VMI Mythbusters" in addition to Datalliance sessions covering recent and planned innovations within the Datalliance VMI platform. A number of insightful statistics and trends from this year's survey of the growing Datalliance VMI global community were also presented in multiple sessions. 

In a Datalliance company update, Datalliance President and CEO Carl Hall shared a number of factors that illustrate the steady growth of VMI as well as the global Datalliance community. The 2015 customer survey found that 77% of suppliers plan to grow their programs over the next two years. Another telling statistic was that the Datalliance VMI platform is now being used to manage inventory in nearly 24,000 locations spread across every continent except Antarctica. 

The Forum program also included a thought-provoking and entertaining keynote session presented by Paralympic ski racer and best-selling author, Josh Sundquist, who challenged the audience to adopt his ski racing motto, 1MT1MT (one more thing, one more time) as their new standard of excellence in the way they approach their respective roles within the highly collaborative VMI process. 

About Datalliance

Datalliance is the world's largest independent Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) service provider. Delivered as a cloud-based platform backed by extensive customer service, Datalliance VMI makes it easy for suppliers and their customers to establish sales and inventory management relationships that fully align business objectives, improve collaboration, and streamline supply chain operations. Datalliance manages billions of dollars in orders, millions of SKUs, and thousands of locations worldwide for leading companies in consumer, industrial and healthcare markets. For more information about Datalliance, visit www.datalliance.com.