External Blog – Mental Inventory Turnover

An interesting concept I came across while reading blogs was that of the Mental Inventory Turnover. As explained by Derek Christensen in his blog post, Mental Inventory turnover is the space in your head that is used up by the indecisions you are facing.

This concept takes inventory turnover, which on its own is a measure of how many times the average inventory a company has sold or used in a given period, say, a year. Christensen explains that when he wants product X but does not purchase it in order to make more comparisons on all substitutes of product X or to wait for a sale, he experiences a lingering sensation at the back of his mind which resembles a mental warehouse where he has a stock of this indecision that he may keep for months.

Looking at it from the outside, however, is a good phenomenon for companies, who try to have their products on your mind all the time through marketing, until the point you buy it.

Photo source                         mind-chatter

On the other hand, the concept of mental inventory turnover can be applied to Firms too.Ann has told us about how Coca Cola did outstanding amounts of market research for bottled water, instead of simply starting to sell bottled water. The amount of research done did not end up giving them a competitive edge in the market, it just dragged on the decision making part and increased costs. Which brings me to quote Christensen, “Sometimes you have to make a decision not because it is the best decision, but to get it out of your head so you can move on to something else”

 

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