How is inventory optimization different from inventory management?

Inventory management tracks what you hold (counts, locations, movements and reorder points) and its measure of success is accuracy. Inventory optimization decides what you should hold given uncertain demand, variable lead times and a limited budget, and its measure is the trade-off between cash and service. A warehouse can have flawless records and still be badly optimised, with cash stuck in slow movers and thin cover on the items customers want. That is the gap AI-driven inventory optimization software is built to close.