Investing in a high-quality inventory management system and supply chain software is a guaranteed way to ensure your business continues to grow throughout an uncertain future.
Many companies are finding it increasingly difficult to navigate and manage the demands of the modern market and its consumers. This includes shifting customer outlooks and expectations for superior service.
The arrival of the new decade brings with it the promise of growth, but with growth comes unpredictability.
Smart businesses think ahead about advanced solutions and inventory software to properly track goods, manage inventory, and measure performance. An intelligent supply chain and inventory management system can make all the difference in whether or not your operation will continue to grow successfully throughout the future.
Supply Chains Mean Business Success—or Disaster
In 2019, several large companies saw operational failures involving mismanagement of their inventory and supply chain.
Asos, an eCommerce-driven fashion brand, experienced a communication breakdown between its warehouse management software and website, effectively shutting down the ability for consumers to place new orders on the site. Paired with supplier issues, available stock was restricted for customers in Germany, France, and the United States. As a result, Asos’s profits dropped 68% for the 2019 fiscal year.
Malfunctioning technology integrations were also responsible for several other multi-million dollar supply chain disasters as well. Though these mistakes are devastating to profits, they typically are very easy to avoid when the right practices are in place.
As with most mistakes, they could have been prevented if proactive solutions had been enacted. And, when it comes to something as vital as your inventory, experiencing a mistake with your inventory technology integration can lead to devastating losses.
Here’s a look at how an inventory management system like SkuVault can increase your profits and help you avoid potential supply chain disasters.
Complete Inventory and Warehouse Visibility
Synchronizing data between departments is essential to keep a supply chain running efficiently and to identify the source of errors.
For Asos, this kind of visibility would have created an opportunity for supply chain managers to identify that the low inventories showing on the website were not consistent with the actual inventory in their warehouse network.
A well-connected inventory management system creates a vast pool of knowledge, offering you valuable information and insights you can use strategically to avoid complications and make decisions that will be best for your bottom-line.
An inventory management system also offers complete visibility into inventory activity and history across warehouses and sales channels. Manual human errors can be virtually eliminated.
Utilize Reports for Greater ROI
To get the most out of your inventory management system and your supply chain setup, it’s important to let go of outdated reporting methods. Generating useful reporting that is easy to use and access is critical to the success of your supply chain operations.
Advanced reporting provides you with the knowledge you need to make more intelligent purchasing decisions, leading you to higher savings and a better bottom-line.
This also promotes strong interdepartmental communications that optimize workflows, helping you to avoid shipping mistakes, oversells, and other issues that will cause breakdowns within your supply chain.
Consumer markets will always be rife with uncertainties—trends, sporadic demands, and unstable global relations are all things that are mostly out of any company’s control. It’s impossible to be able to account for these variables, but a powerful inventory management system that contains a number of forecasting and sales pattern procedures will help you accurately predict and identify future developments.
In-depth reporting will always keep you one step ahead of any potential issues. The more comprehensive and precise the reporting, the more accurate the future demand coverage will be.
Streamline Your Workflows
An efficient supply chain needs to run like a well-oiled machine. One way to accommodate this kind of efficiency is with a set of consistent and customized picking workflows.
Digital and paperless picking workflows are a great example. Wave Picking, a unique SkuVault feature, allows users to pick multi-line orders rather than orders one-by-one. This makes the process much more efficient by targeting which items to pick next, rather than which orders.
A powerful inventory management system allows you to simplify and streamline your warehouse workflows, reducing human error, labor costs, out of stocks, and oversells.
Automating your inventory management is a guaranteed way to improve your workflows and avoid potential disasters within your supply chain.
Inventory Management Gives You Certainty
If you’re a business owner, chances are you’re currently having or have had issues with inventory management at some point. Maybe you weren’t even aware it was or is an inventory management problem. But in the ever-changing supply chain landscape, it’s impossible to succeed without inventory control processes.
SkuVault provides a method of control in the evolving supply chain, giving you certainty that you’ll still maintain success in potentially negative situations.
Updating your warehouse workflows, constantly seeking to innovate your business operations, and not being afraid to improve upon things that are already working “well enough” will ensure that you are never missing out on enhanced efficiency. Most importantly, these practices will keep you proactive when it comes to issues with your supply chain.
A poorly managed inventory system is one of the biggest threats to business in the modern day. This is especially true for smaller businesses, where resources are scarce and there is much less room for error.
Smart businesses will think ahead when it comes to implementing a high-quality inventory system.
