Quickly, Nelson wrote down some notes:

CookiePalooza sold its cookies through high$-$end, upscale grocery stores on a VMR $($vendor managed inventory$)$ consignment basis. In other words, CookiePalooza owned the inventory until it was sold $($i$.$e$.,$ in its retailers' warehouses and stores$).$

As a VMR operation, each planning team made the decisions on how many and when to ship cookies to key accounts. This autonomy was the source of competition and friction between Nelson and Vincent.

Thankfully, sales are very stable throughout the year and predictable to within less than $1\%$ of actual demand.

Lead times are consistently two days from CookiePalooza's bakery to any of GourmetShoppe's distribution centers.

For technical reasons, each SKU must be managed and shipped separately. Shipments from CookiePalooza to GourmetShoppe cost a fixed dollar amount, can be of any size, and can be initiated at any time.

All relevant costs $($unit costs, shipping costs, etc.$)$ are the same for all SKUs.

Nelson had to think fast and come up with some good, logical explanations before the sales summit resumed after lunch.

Questions

Imagine Nelson called you after he jotted down his notes. He had emailed you the above storyline and asked for your advice. What do you tell him? How can he explain that his team is doing a great job across all products sold to GourmetShoppe? In other words, how can he demonstrate that his team's inventory$-$management performance has not been inconsistent?

How has Vincent achieved better inventory$-$to$-$sales ratios? That is$,$ what are the potential reasons for the observed differences in inventory$-$to$-$sales ratios? How can Nelson make these arguments without looking like a jerk?

How could the VP of Sales assess whether the reasons you offer actually do explain those differences?