Don't get too focused on your warehousing prowess—what really matters is getting that inventory to your customers, says the Council of Logistics Management. "Managers today need to be customer-oriented…this is especially true of key customers," says the council's 2002 Journal of Business Logistics . An article in the journal offers four new inventory measures, all based on the stock available to a single customer, that can help you better meet customer needs: item availability, order availability, period availability, and shortage frequency. Each uses a customer's purchase history to estimate future activity.