A business excels by delivering an all-round performance in every department. It includes planning effective marketing strategies, aligning all stakeholders, ensuring active communication, and much more.
However, things are a little different and more complex in the wholesale industry. You must manage storage, regular supply, marketing functions, risk bearing, financial assistance, and other critical functions. The problem is that manual work can lead to mistakes, and keeping your work error-free is a must.
Moreover, you have to handle multiple tasks at once and be up on your toes at every stage. It involves looking after the entire process of buying goods in extensive quantities and choosing the correct mediums for their distribution to and from your warehouse.
Henceforth, ensuring perfection at every stage can be a task, but today’s business dynamics have evolved, which is excellent news!
Wholesale & Distribution Industry Today
In 2022, businesses are progressing swiftly, and this advancement has a lot to do with automation, especially in the wholesale and distribution industry. From faster order fulfillment to technology-led picking, there are many changes introducing new trends in this industry.
Further, palletizing for redistribution and flexible packaging are more such introductions in this market that are helping bring finesse to be wholesale and distribution processes. These methods simplify essential business operations and ensure flawlessness at every stage.
In addition, the sortation has become more dependable, and pallet handling has become more organized than ever before; courtesy of ERP, businesses have become more productive. Alongside all the mentioned features, the ERP software helps maximize your warehouse space, making your reverse logistics more precise, optimizing your forecast planning, and more.
The Wholesale Distribution Industry Woes
With opportunities come challenges. You will also encounter a few challenges in wholesale distribution, and they can come in different forms. Have a look at the most common one!
Inventory Management Issues
One of the significant issues in the wholesale distribution industry is poor inventory management. Suppose your inventory schedule is not managed correctly. In that case, it can lead to a shortage of stock in high-demand periods, excessive stock taking up space in the warehouse during low-demand periods, and more wrong shipment times.
Moreover, inefficient inventory planning can result in minor inconveniences that add up to cause more significant problems. Delayed reaction times, inaccurate reporting, and erroneous scheduling are the root causes of all the issues that arise in inventory management.
Limitations of Supply Chain Processes
Currently, supply chain challenges in wholesale distribution are gripping various businesses. The need to meet customer expectations and demands has led to mayhem in the supply chain processes because of same-day delivery, limited lead times, and complex e-commerce fulfillment conditions.
Not to mention, managing orders in the presence of such volatile conditions is difficult. You should automate order placement with your suppliers if stock levels are low. Also, you will need help managing the existing and incoming stock while promptly dispatching goods to clients.
As these factors reveal more supply chain loopholes daily, adopting them has become necessary.
Poor Customer Satisfaction
With the competition level being extremely fierce today, clients have high expectations; fulfilling them is how you grow. Likewise, the wholesale distribution industry is just as vigorous regarding customer satisfaction; it is hard to achieve because customers won’t settle for less today and choose your rival instead.
However, using ERP software to attain customer contentment helps a lot. It allows you to take care of the customer and fulfill their needs with the quickest response time. You can manage your inventory better and ensure everything your customers want is always available.
Furthermore, it helps optimize your supply chain and makes order tracking easier. You can monitor every movement using simple software and always be one step ahead of the demand to eliminate any chances of product shortage. By doing so, your whole distribution business can complete orders on time and better encourage customer retention.
Losses Due to Pricing Errors
Gone are the times when spreadsheets were the only tool to manage your pricing operations. If you still are collecting them in a spreadsheet, there’s every chance you will lose money owing to pricing errors.
Stats show that around 90% of spreadsheets consist of errors. While some people accidentally enter the wrong figures, others input the incorrect formula in a spreadsheet, making your finances problematic.
Your customers could either pay too low for a high-value product or switch to the competitors if your products seem overpriced. In both situations, your profit will be compromised, and no business wants to encounter such a situation.
Moreover, minor errors like these can lead to considerable problems in businesses with narrow profit margins. To help fix this issue, implementing an ERP system is the way to go. It helps maintain accurate and exact pricing in your distribution center.
Last but not least, you can enter segment-specific or customer-specific pricing and set up promotional pricing discounts and coupons in the ERP system.
The Role that an ERP Can Play
Undoubtedly, the wholesale distribution industry is highly diverse and faces new challenges every day. The main pain points are inventory management concerns, supply chain issues, workflow shortcomings, and more that only automation can solve
The ERP system is a savior in such cases. It gives all the latest insights into your business, so it remains competitive while providing direction to the operational processes, removing all bottlenecks, and breaking through the data silos. Most of all, it helps solve unique problems that are specifically present in the wholesale distribution industry.
