The majority of businesses know by now that an order management system is not optional. However, with the potential to grow fast in the commerce industry, many are outgrowing their current systems quicker than anticipated. The flip side is that trends in order management are pivoting faster than ever before and some retailers are feeling the competitive disadvantage of not running on a modernized platform.
Streamlining your business processes and improving your warehouse and operations are the main driver of why companies search for a new order management system. Most companies know they want a system that can provide:
- Real-time Inventory Visibility
- Avoiding out-of-stocks and back-orders
- Door-to-door visibility
- Enterprise-wide accurate data tracking
Here are four other indicators your business is ready for a more powerful order management system.
1. You're not Omnichannel
Your business probably started as one touchpoint. But if you find yourself with multiple points-of-sale such as two or more eCommerce websites, increased number of stores, you may be ready for a new order management system. If your customers are buying from multiple places or your operations are expanding to a combination of catalog, phone, online and in-store, having an order management system that can track all channels in real-time is critical to managing your influx of customer profiles.
2. You're Missing the Mark in Operations
As catalogs and inventory count grows, so does the complexity of business operations. If your warehouse relies on manual process, it is almost impossibly to consistently grow your sales year-over-year because of the cost of manual overhead. An order management system can help by syncing critical data across all channels in one source automatically.
3. Demand Exceeds Capacity
Increasing the volume of sales is the ultimate goal for any commerce company, you want people to buy your goods and services at a growing rate. But when inefficient operations like vendor management, generating POs and manually receiving inventory and inputting that information grow, your warehouse is in for an operations timesink. Exceeding operational capacity indicators include:
- Understaffed warehouse and delayed orders.
- Manual review of orders pushes the pack time to late in the day
- Customer service is not armed with up-to-date information
4. In the Dark
Stock-outs and back-orders are sometime unavoidable, but when they are occurring on a regular basis, it can signal a problem. On the flip side, sitting on excess inventory can cost your warehouse in wasted space and diminishing value of the product. An order management system that gives you accurate counts of how much, and where your inventory is, is critical for planning for future sales.
Are you thinking about moving to a more agile and powerful order management system? Let us show you a demo.
