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Is the Supply Chain Still Hurting?

Posted on by Eleanor Hecks

To keep expenses low and avoid inventory that wouldn’t move, most businesses went to an order on demand type model a decade or more ago. Unfortunately, when the supply chain runs into issues, not having inventory in stock hurts both consumers and businesses. 

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, people learned just what could go wrong with a supply chain. The store shelves were barren of toilet paper and everyday supplies. In some areas, the shelves were wiped clean of canned foods and perishable items, leaving people feeling panicked over where they’d get sustenance. 

Where Is the Supply Chain Right Now?

Since, things have improved some but issues still remain in some industries. The issues that caused supply chain issues in late 2019 and early 2020 have not completely gone away. Continued shifts in supply demand and labor shortages impact some sectors, including consumer goods and food. Another issue is structural factors and getting items from point A to point B, with the risk of disruptions at any point along the way. 

Wars in Ukraine and disruptions in other parts of the world might also impact an already weakened supply chain. According to Statista, the global supply chain market will hit around $30 billion by 2026. Many of the services making up that number are to help businesses navigate the new normal in securing materials or products.

While you can’t control pandemics, wars or even labor shortages, there are some things you can do to ensure your business runs smoothly and you have what your customers need when they want it.

1. Control Your Inventory

The first step to avoiding supply chain issues is to know what inventory you have. Invest in an inventory management system that alerts you when you run low on a popular item or need to clear out stock that isn’t moving quickly. 

Look for a program that tracks sales, customer requests and stock for the most benefit possible. You should occasionally run analytics to see if you should up the amount of inventory in a particular area. For popular items, you may be able to integrate with the vendor’s system and submit automatic orders whenever your stock falls below a certain level. 

2. Manage Customer Expectations

If customers expect to walk into your brick-and-mortar store and buy what they need or pop online and get an order in two or three days, you may set them up for disappointment with particularly popular items. 

Figure out how long it takes to receive the product. Are there any delays typically? What promotions are you planning and do they make sense based on how easy or difficult it is to get stock?

 Know what you’re spending on various promotions and marketing efforts. For example, one company allotted around 25% to promotional activities, but the amounts vary depending on what type of product they’re offering.

3. Add Time for Delays

Disruptions in the global economy, government regulations and increased demand in some areas all contribute to supply chain issues and result in delays in receiving products and raw materials. 

Whenever you plan out your ordering time frame, allow a little extra time for unexpected delays. It’s better to overlap inventory and have some still left in stock when new items arrive than to run short and miss out on sales.

Think about what you do when you visit a store and they are out of what you wish to buy. You either go online or you drive to another store until you find what you need. If you fail to serve your loyal customers, you’ll lose them to someone who has what they seek to buy. 

4. DIY Products

What type of products do you sell? Can you make it yourself or add some customization and offer it in a different way?

For example, you might want to invest in a 3D printer and create your own products on-site. Another idea is to invest in a Cricut or other scoring machine and customize items to your patrons’ liking. Cricuts are already changing multiple industries such as education and retail. 

5. Build Relationships With Suppliers

Who are your current suppliers? Take the time to phone them and get to know them on a more personal level. If you don’t have a point of contact for each company, develop one now. You need a human who can handle your concerns and answer questions about delays or estimated delivery times.

Once you have a solid relationship with your current suppliers, seek backup sources. Is there another company offering similar products? Can you place a smaller order and see how it goes? While you don’t want to damage the positive relationship with your current third-party vendors, it’s smart to have another option in your back pocket for those times when your supply chain can’t deliver what you need when you need it. 

6. Watch Demand and Stock Up

Keep an eye on how much of an item moves in case you need to buy sooner than expected. Most inventory management software lets you set alerts. You’ll be notified if something starts to sell faster than expected.

If you notice some seasonal shifts, you might want to stock up on those items before the busy time hits. Look ahead and plan accordingly, and you’ll be less likely to run out of something you need.

Take a Breath and Understand You Can’t Control the Supply Chain

While you can take steps to improve your inventory management and develop relationships with vendors, you can’t control the supply chain. You have no say over if a war erupts near the factory or shipping vessels get held in port. You can’t predict how many other people might buy the same item and drive demand up or down. 

The only thing you can do is pay attention to trends and numbers and adapt as needed. If you can stay on top of your company data, you’ll have a much higher chance of navigating the supply chain successfully.

Inventory Management Software for SMEs: A Guide

Posted on by Matt Bernot

When your SME relies heavily on managing inventory, you want to make sure that your inventory management system is as organized and accurate as possible. To be more specific, you want to keep your inventory management system set up in a way that avoids what some refer to as organizational lag— “the inability to adapt, in lock-step, with the rapidly evolving external environment to remain competitive.” This includes the flow of assorted company data (customer info, receipts, notes, etc.) as well as inventory data. The goal? Keeping all of your employees up to date with the most accurate data possible.

Instead of using scattered sticky notes or scrambled spreadsheets, an inventory management software system designed specifically for the needs of SMEs is the more reliable and versatile solution. Not only does inventory management software keep all of your stock organized, but it can also automate a lot of the order management process while being more cost-efficient and drastically reducing the ability for human error to cause major problems.

Inventory Management: Overseeing Stock and Orders

While keeping track of stock is obviously an important feature of inventory management software, it’s far from the only thing that it can do. In addition to keeping track of stock, inventory management software can create a bill of materials (BOM). It’s important to always be able to see how much material is needed to expand your current stock, to have the ability to update lists when new items are created, and even notify the right employees and vendors when stock is running low. Furthermore, inventory management software can assist with the other main aspect of inventory, order management. 

When sales occur, inventory management software can immediately and automatically place a purchase order to restore the inventory that was just bought. The right inventory management software can also help during the sales process by adding visuals and other informative assets to give customers additional insight and information about the product that they’re buying. When items are sent out for delivery or making their way to you to be stocked and sorted, inventory management software can record all of the important tracking info so you know where your items are and approximately how long it will take for them to be delivered.

Cost-Effectiveness of Inventory Management Software

One of the areas where inventory management software provides the most value is in how it can save your SME money by increasing operational efficiency. As previously mentioned, inventory management software can help create a BOM. That means that it can also give you an estimate on the cost of the materials, which in turn can help your enterprise with budgeting. By being able to view estimated costs within your inventory management system, you’ll be able to put together more accurate financial plans for other areas of your business knowing in advance what these costs will be.

Inventory management software automatically calculates the value of the inventory that you have in stock, as well as the value for projected inventory levels for any given period of time, i.e. during a busy season. Inventory management software can even automatically calculate your inventory turnover rate so that you meet consumer demand without overstocking.  But the true benefit to inventory management software is in the way that it can reduce fixed assets. This helps your business stay more efficiently organized, saving space and storage. By knowing the exact location of your inventory, you can avoid wasting time hunting down the stock that you need. This way, you can maximize both labor and space. 

One of the best aspects of utilizing an integrated inventory management system is that there are extremely cost effective options that get the job done accurately and efficiently. Most inventory management software is cloud-based, which means there is no need to maintain servers, hardware, or an extensive IT staff. Additionally, some systems are priced based on the size of your company, so your growing business doesn’t have to worry about paying what a Fortune 500 company would have to pay.

Fixing The Problem Of Human Error

Here is where you really get what you pay for when you invest in an inventory management software system: the vast reduction and elimination of errors. As humans, we inevitably make mistakes—an inventory management software system can help eliminate those errors. As Forbes aptly points out, “factors like lack of experience, attention loss or fatigue can result in employees forgetting to complete tasks…these errors might seem small but such lapses have caused businesses to lose millions every year.” While Forbes is talking on the scale of large businesses, that doesn’t mean that the impact is any less significant for a growing business in terms of percentages of potential revenue lost. Additionally, the use of barcodes means that inventory is recorded more accurately than someone writing manual labels. In addition to more accurate labels, inventory management software is more efficient at organizing your inventory so that everything is stored neatly instead of like a complicated, 3D version of Tetris.

The Takeaway

While there are lots of different software solutions out there that serve an important purpose for businesses, inventory management software that’s integrated into the rest of your business’s processes can do everything that all of the other systems can do, and more. In addition to keeping track of orders, they can also manage your inventory stock and help save your company money by both mitigating human error in the process and by providing data on how much inventory to buy, when to buy it, and how to best store it.

Improve Efficiency with Inventory Management Software Solutions

Posted on by Matt Bernot

Losing customers? Anxious about your company’s longevity? Adopting more efficient management strategies is part of the solution. In today’s business environment, successful companies rely on information systems built upon complex database technology to support management decisions and increase frozen asset turnover. This is due to inventory management software allowing businesses to automate processes that were previously manual and time-consuming, with counting and cataloging inventory being one of the biggest processes.

According to Clara Lu at Quickbooks, since the economy is showing signs of strength again following the pandemic-induced global recession, the need for increased inventory control, flexibility, speed, and more accurate fulfillment is paramount for businesses to thrive in an increasingly competitive global economic environment.. Many experts concur that computerizing inventory control results in more devotion to the B and C items, as to the A’s, in the typical ABC analysis while also expanding the analysis to include the profit margin per item.

The first step in finding the best software match  to manage your business processes is understanding the history of this monumental system and then determining what type of business model a software system caters to.

Inventory Management: Past to Present

Inventory management has been around for centuries, and has historically been based upon principles such as Push and Pull and cycle counting. However, the modern history of the inventory management begins in the 1940s with the creation of the barcode. By the 1980s, with the assistance of more advanced computers and software, the systems of inventory management worked in a cycle, from purchasing, to tracking, and then to monitoring inventory. 

The price of barcodes and readers decreased during this time, and by the early 2000s, inventory management software had transformed so much that businesses no longer needed to input data by hand, and barcode readers could instantly update their databases. Finally, the most modern development in terms of  inventory management systems is in regards to radio-frequency identification technology. RFID technology allows for more information to be contained within a computerized tag  and gives computers the ability to read these tags without being in direct sight. Therefore, inventory management tools are a significant part of a company’s management.

Inventory management tools can be split into two parts: mathematical models/methods of planning, and an information system that provides a continuously documented database of data. Online analytical processing provides sophisticated technologies from data collection, integration, retrieval, analysis, query optimization, and advanced user interfaces.

Inventory Software Set-Up

inventory management software

Inventory management software has grown tremendously in what it can accomplish for businesses, especially in the highly competitive and revolutionary era of the 2020s. However, any software you may be looking into will fail to assist your business if your inventory management system needs serious remedies at the fundamental level, not just the technological level.

The critical elements of an inventory management system are well organized location names, specific location labels, short and unmistakable item numbers, units of measure, and passionate employees who know to follow your strong policies. Once these elements are established, you will realize that using pen and paper or spreadsheets to maintain inventory data is difficult and failure ridden. Using inventory software will allow many users to access it, provide insight to your inventory activity, and assist in keeping an accurate historical record.

Inventory Management is for the Future

Recently, the world has seen a strong shift away from in-house and basic warehouse management software solutions, with 68% of organizations moving to full-featured, cloud-based inventory management systems.

With these new automated processes comes more frequent and less stressful cycle counts, increased inventory visibility, greater fulfillment accuracy, and fewer scenarios where items are out of stock.. Any growing business has a business owner who focuses on profitability and scalability, and while inventory management may not be the most glamorous aspect of business, it can save your business from eating itself alive before your dream can be accomplished.

The Takeaway

Inventory management software can save or greatly expand the power your business wields. Similar to adding a highly technical and sophisticated employee, the right software will be able to help you make important decisions and guide your company in a direction that you previously only dreamed was possible. Deciding on a specific inventory management software to meet your business needs may take time, but establishing the critical elements of an inventory system is crucial before making this move for your company.

Why Inventory Software Is Crucial To Business Management

Posted on by Matt Bernot

Every successful business needs to know its stock levels for all of the different products it sells. In a digital landscape, business management software makes the process of inventory management more efficient and accessible to business owners. Inventory software syncs data in real time and integrates processes to ensure the business owner’s peace of mind when it comes to tracking orders. 

Different industries demand different requirements from businesses. It is important to look for the inventory software that serves you and your business the best and most fully. Once you integrate this kind of software into your business, you will find that not only are you improving the accuracy in tracking quantities, shipments, and materials, but also saving valuable time that your business can use to increase profitability in other areas.

Important Features of All-In-One Inventory Management Software

In order to find the right inventory software that serves the specific needs of your business, it is important to take into account some of the key features of inventory software. These include but are not limited to:

Inventory software keeps you on top of your orders and sales in an organized fashion while keeping you informed about all of your crucial KPIs in real-time. This is a proven method to avoid errors and discrepancies. For example, with the right business management software, you can improve your manufacturing processes by creating a bill of materials and labor, easily calculate material costs, update your inventory with new items, and create tasks for your staff.

inventory software

In terms of order management, you are able to instantly create purchase orders, control vendor costs, record tracking and shipping information, and add images and notes to items. Integrating an inventory management system within all of the departments of your business can assure you understand all of the ins and outs of your finances in real time, most importantly your profitability.

On top of these features, a great business management software is able to be customized to suit your specific needs, allows your customers and vendors to communicate with your business representatives, provides an intuitive applicant tracking system and a complete inventory management system. It is recommended to look for an inventory software that is both comprehensive with optimized tools and can automate many routine and repetitive tasks. Also, it is important to consider the usability of the program to ensure that the management of your inventory becomes seamless and largely automated.

You may find that some software is easier to use than others. Some software focuses on enhancing work orders and B2B sales channels, while others adapt to a variety of business types. Automating processes and reducing costs to maximize profitability should be a staple of any easy-to-use inventory management software. Business management software systems can reduce operational costs as well as administrative costs, while increasing on-time deliveries.

Wrapping Up

Decisions about software are difficult when taking into account all of the seemingly unpredictable variables that may arise over time. For this reason, it’s crucial to know what your business needs and seek solutions that serve it best now and in the future. The best inventory software will support your process of buying and selling products to help your business succeed. The tools a business management software brings to the table allows you to operate your business more efficiently using automated real-time updates to quickly sell products and services while leaving customers completely satisfied. It is a proven way to increase sales and increase profits.

Master Inventory Software to Effectively Manage Your Supplies

Posted on by Matt Bernot

In a competitive market, high-quality businesses and their employees rely on established and practical systems to assist them to rise above the competition. Inventory software continuously improves and monitors, integrates, channels, empowers and monitors warehouse processes to ensure businesses will avoid unfulfilled orders and the misuse of necessary time.

Without tracking the amount of inventory a business has, where each item is located, and forecasting an accurate quantity needed for future sales, a company will fail to turn a profit and generate growth. As a result, inventory management software rids a successful business owner of the tedious time spent tracking inventory with pencil and paper and replaces this process with more efficient technology to track when shipments arrive, where raw materials are, and when products are on the move.

Multiple types of businesses use inventory software, equipment inventory software, or even warehouse inventory management software to raise their business to the level of which they previously only dreamt of doing. In a simplified example, an individual company owner may have various suppliers and could be working on an ad-hoc basis in terms of their supply. How long can they maintain effective business practices under these conditions solely using spreadsheets or other  less efficient methods of inventory tracking? The answer is that it is more effective, both in cost and time, to use an all in one inventory management software that serves you and your business to ensure that inventory is not over-ordered nor under-stocked.

Inventory Management via Inventory Software

The first step for small and growing business owners after acquiring their inventory is to sell their product to the market. However, this process may be overwhelming, especially when attempting to manually input and interpret your inventory levels and order flow. Having a clear and accurate view of your ROI is integral for all businesses, so inventory software is an obvious choice for any type of business owner that is looking for a better way to track this data. Inventory software controls stock levels, saves space, maximizes the value of labor, satisfies customers, and reduces the use of other fixed assets to also save you and your business from unnecessary costs.

The Cost Of Inventory Software

Most inventory management software is cloud-based and will not necessitate the individual to maintain servers, hire an IT staff, or make other excessive hardware purchases. All of the servers and necessary equipment are managed by the software company itself, saving companies a lot of money, time and energy.

The cost of cloud-based inventory management software is based on a monthly subscription rate, but it is also determined by several other factors, including the size of your business. Retail point of sale software (POS) may be a starting point for most businesses, but when your business is ready to grow and scale, many businesses find that POS software alone is insufficient.  This is because POS systems solely keep track of sales and accept payment from customers, which ignores tracking inventory, establishing the quantity and time that inventory needs to be reordered, effective inventory turnover, and does not mitigate human error by automating tasks that help to fulfill sales quickly.

Approximately 46%  of the businesses surveyed in Wasp Barcode’s State of Small Business Report fail to track inventory and/or  use manual processes. Those companies are not receiving the same benefits in relation to maintaining competitiveness in the marketplace, increased efficiency, saving money in the long run, and freeing up employees to do less monotonous tasks.

Inventory Software’s Role in Inventory Turnover

A key metric for all businesses is inventory turnover: the cost of goods sold divided by the average inventory on hand. If the rate is too low or too high, a business is in danger of overstocking, not meeting consumer demand, and dealing with the deteriorating value of stagnant products on a shelf.

Podium LLC, a manufacturer based out of South Carolina, saw their inventory counting time decrease by 90% when taking advantage of an inventory management solution. 

Inventory software helps businesses meet their desired inventory turnover ratio by providing inventory tracking, effective and time-efficient reordering, and accounting integrations which serve to prevent double-entry of data and automate yet another task that can free up time to focus on other needs for your business.

Takeaway

Inventory software is the most effective manner in which a business can successfully manage maintaining proper inventory levels while maintaining high levels of customer (and employee) satisfaction.  It can provide business  owners with the ability to spend their time doing other tasks besides manually organizing their spreadsheets or over ordering products that are not necessarily needed in bulk at the time. Inventory management software  acts as a digitized assistant, allowing for professionalism, profitability, and efficiency to shine through where, without it, only ambiguity and indecisiveness are present.

Inventory Tracking Software: Why Growing Business Owners Are Choosing This Kind Of Solution

Posted on by Matt Bernot

“Do I have any of this product left in stock? Did the order arrive on time? What are our customers saying? How do I track down the one specific product I need amongst the rest of my products in my inventory?” 

While many growing businesses find themselves seeking a simple solution to the questions above, what sets the average business apart from the exceptional one is choosing the right inventory tracking software solution for their business. Inventory tracking software is an all-encompassing system integral to ensuring that your customers receive the product they desire and that you, the business owner, can efficiently restock, distribute, and follow up as to the location your product has been received.

To assist in selling physical goods, some form of inventory tracking technology is used by most types of businesses including retailers, wholesalers, and manufacturers. This technology can range from free tools to expansive (and *expensive*) systems. While there are businesses already utilizing the best inventory tracking software for their business, many fail to recognize the importance of implementing this kind of solution.

Inventory Tracking in Optimizing Business Efficiency

Inventory tracking software allows you always to know which  SKUs you currently possess, where they are physically, and what quantity is available at each location. According to Gene Tyndall, a well-known supply chain thought leader, “If a product is in your inventory, you should know where it is in your system—in China, on a ship, in a distribution center, or with a retailer waiting to be sold.”

An inventory tracking system allows for improved fulfillment accuracy, increased warehouse productivity, faster shopping and deliveries, more savings, and better customer satisfaction.

inventory management software

Inventory tracking helps to alleviate typical business woes of disorganized inventory, poor picking and packing processes, and lack of stock control. Additionally, inventory tracking software can help in detecting theft and administrative errors that would otherwise be difficult and time-consuming to deal with. Your warehouse inventory management software will help your employees always to be able to know the levels of all existing stock items and their specific locations.

Inventory Tracking Methods and Applications

Inventory management software covers the acquisition, tracking, and shipping of products, can serve as a forecasting tool for customer demand, and it’s able to offer alerts and notifications to improve operational processes such as cycle counts. It effectively organizes inventory to make the picking and packing process more efficient, automates the order-picking process, and also helps you to determine the operational performance for each item in your catalog while offering inventory reports.

Inventory tracking is useful not only to producers of physical commodities but to a wide variety of other industries as well. For example, a restaurant owner needs to be able to accurately track their store’s inventory to ensure that they are able to sell their customers the food they would like to order.

inventory tracking software

Overall, inventory management software is the most effective manner in which to track inventory—easy-to-mishandle card systems and disjointed spreadsheets simply don’t cut it anymore for growing businesses.

 Inventory Tracking Software Helps Your Bottom Line

A solution for inventory tracking means your business reaps monetary benefits due to your operations being efficient and organized. Optimizing your warehouse or facility means you can accurately estimate the space you’ll need in the not-so-distant future. Additionally, labor costs are mitigated as staff becomes more efficient and able to help get your orders out in a more timely and accurate manner. It helps to save staff from going through the trouble of carrying out inventory recounts and prevents stockouts. Also, implementing an inventory tracking solution will make it easier to retain a large base of loyal customers, as your business will be able to happily boast about having both a great product and a great track record for customer service.

Takeaway

Inventory tracking software allows businesses to stay ahead of their competition and meet the increasing demands of their customer base. With the right system, a business can efficiently restock their supplies right when they are in need of them, ensure accurate and timely deliveries, and even protect themselves from theft and errors. All in all, inventory tracking software allows for time to be spent on other crucial aspects of your business as well as Helping you make better decisions for the company in the future.