The ABC analysis serves as a categorization of the stock depending on certain criteria like e.g. revenue, sales or costs. The purpose of the analysis is to give an overview of the current state of objects and/or processes, in order to increase the profitability. For this purpose, the individual items are divided into category A (highest share), B (average share) and C (lowest share). Based on the Pareto principle (80:20 rule), the items with the greatest impact, can be identified.

Example: 20% of the A-items are responsible for 80% of the stock value.