Inventory planning and SME's competitive advantage in Taraba State

Most SMEs are just surviving instead of thriving as an implied result of a lack of adequate planning, the study seeks to examine inventory planning and SMEs' competitive advantage to achieve this the study's specificity aim; To ascertain the effect of demand forecasting on SMEs competitive advantage in Taraba State and secondly to examine the effect of safety stock inventory on SMEs competitive advantage in Taraba State. In line with this two, research questions and hypotheses were raised accordingly. The study adopts the material resource planning theory. A survey research design was adopted. Thus, data w ere collected through the use of a questionnaire . To source primary data, the researchers sought the responses of SMEs located in Wukari and Jalingo metropolis, the major towns in Taraba State. Based on the records for the year 20 21 gotten from the Taraba state Board of Internal Revenue Service (BIRS), the researcher arrived at a target population of three hundred and seventy-five ( 375 ) which consists of SMEs operating in the selected metropolis. From the population of 375 , a sample of 194 SMEs was selected using Taro Yamane’ formula . The formulated hypotheses were tested using multiple regression techniques with the aid of SPSS 20. Findings show that demand forecasting has a significant positive on the competitive advantage of SMEs in Taraba State and that Safety stock inventory has a significant positive on the competitive advantage of SMEs in Taraba State. The study concludes and recommends among others that SMEs should be more attentive to their demand forecast to improve competitive advantage because forecasting provides a deeper understanding of how market is likely to evolve which provide a competitive advantage by improving a company's agility and ability to enhance a product, target customers effectively or gain other operational insight and ultimately reducing unnecessary cost.