Inventory & Supply Chain Consultant
Jaco Barkhuizen
Is Your Supply Chain Choking Your Cash Flow?
Many multi-million dollar e-commerce brands scale front-end marketing beautifully, only to bleed profit margins on the back end.
If you are constantly battling unexpected stock-outs, watching capital sit dead in your warehouse, or struggling with unreliable supplier lead times, you don't need an expensive, full-time corporate hire. You need fractional, system-driven expertise.
What I Do For Your Brand
I specialize in bridging the gap between digital e-commerce storefronts and physical inventory operations. By blending deep technical system expertise with hands-on corporate procurement strategies, I help brand owners systemize and streamline their backend operations.
This is how you win!
Inventory Optimization & Forecasting: Stop stock-outs on your best sellers while cutting the capital you have tied up in excess stock.
The Deadstock Rescue Strategy: Turn slow-moving inventory back into working capital - fast.
Global Sourcing & Margin Expansion: Cut your COGS by going direct; no middlemen, no inflated distributor margins.
End-to-End International Product Sourcing: Build a scalable overseas supply line without the risk of navigating it alone.
System Hygiene & ERP Integration: Your spreadsheet shouldn’t be your only supply chain strategy; let's fix that.
Impact by the Numbers
Throughout my career of 20+ years, I have taken absolute ownership of complex supply chain infrastructures to drive measurable, millions-of-rands turnarounds.
$ 250,000
Cleared in Deadstock
Successfully liquidated two years of highly complex corporate inventory using structured promotions, reclaiming 12% of total stockholding back into cash flow.
98.5%
Stock Availability
Oversaw intricate forecasting frameworks across 14 distribution branches, boosting customer fulfillment reliability while cutting total stock holding costs by 37%.
3x Better
Inventory Turnover
Masterminded systemic shifts that accelerated inventory turnover from an sluggish 2x to 6x annually, preventing capital stagnation.
R4.8 Million
Added to Net Profit
Built and executed innovative procurement revenue and cost-saving frameworks that delivered recurring profitability, protecting 10% of total EBITDA.
How We Can Work Together
I partner with e-commerce founders and leadership teams remotely through highly flexible, high-impact consulting engagements.
SUPPLY CHAIN & INVENTORY AUDIT
A deep-dive diagnostic of your current ordering cycles, data pipelines, and supplier terms. You receive a customized, step-by-step Optimization Blueprint engineered to maximize stock availability while cutting unnecessary holding costs.
INTERNATIONAL SOURCING SETUP
A structured service where I identify overseas factories, manage initial RFP/RFQ cycles, negotiate vendor terms, and establish your inbound international shipping pipelines. Stop relying on expensive distributors and expand your direct margins.
FRACTIONAL DIRECTOR RETAINER
Retainer-based, part-time strategic oversight without the full-time executive price tag. I remotely manage your high-level forecasting, run your monthly stock control reviews, lead vendor renegotiations, and clean up your Shopify-to-ERP data mapping.
Proven Results in Action
Here are some of the success stories from my 20+ years directing high-volume procurement, multi-warehouse logistics, and advanced inventory control systems. I have helped national companies, retail stores and mid-sized e-commerce businesses reclaim trapped cash flow and streamline operations.
Case Study 1
Reclaiming R4 Million in Trapped Cash
A consumer goods company transitioning to its own proprietary brand needed capital for imports and product development, but millions of rands were frozen in ageing, legacy deadstock sitting in its warehouse.
The Intervention
I engineered a structured liquidation framework using targeted data modelling, promotional campaigns, and alternative sales channels to recover maximum value from stock that was quietly eroding.
The Result
R4 million in deadstock cleared over 24 months, injecting direct liquidity back into the business and giving the brand the financial runway it needed to fund its next stage of growth.
"Deadstock isn't just a warehouse problem. It's a cash flow problem. With the right strategy, trapped inventory becomes the capital that funds your next phase of scale."
"In a multi-branch operation, decentralized ordering without data doesn't give branches autonomy, it gives them the ability to quietly destroy working capital at scale."
Case Study 2
From Stockroom Chaos to 98.5% Availability Across 14 Branches
A national industrial goods distributor was holding R114 million in stock across 14 branches, yet customer availability was sitting below 90%. With no centralized planning and every branch ordering independently, capital was being consumed by the wrong stock in the wrong places.
The Intervention
I overhauled the core forecasting systems, implemented ABC inventory categorisation models, and built an automated replenishment framework that replaced ad hoc branch ordering with centralised, data-driven stock pushes across the entire national network.
The Result
Total stock holding compressed by 37%, freeing approximately R42 million in working capital, while customer-facing availability climbed to a near-perfect 98.5%.
© Jaco Barkhuizen. All rights reserved.