Artificial neural networks offer significant potential for improving sales forecasting and inventory management in retail operations. Sven F. Crone provides a thorough analysis of the fundamentals of sales forecasting, inventory management, and the class of neural network methods. He expands this by using asymmetric objective functions of decision costs to create a simultaneous approach for predicting cost-minimal inventory levels that are suitable for robust practical application. This research work was awarded the Science Prizes of the University of Hamburg in 2008 and the Society for Operations Research (GOR) in 2009.