Businesses of all sizes struggle with the same problem: managing and controlling inventory effectively in a real-time environment. Whether a small or large business, you must understand that you can’t just “wing it” when managing your inventory.
When you make the wrong decision, it can cost you money. You could lose money or waste valuable time if you don’t have a system that helps you track and control your inventory.
Organizations use ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software to manage their business operations. It is a set of tools designed to help organizations manage their business processes and keep track of their financial data.
Top Woes of Wholesale & Distribution Today
ERP software allows companies to streamline business processes and improve performance by automating many manual tasks and increasing efficiency. It is used by large enterprises and SMBs alike. This article will explain How ERP helps improve the real-time visibility of process and inventory management.
As our business grows, new pain points emerge out of nowhere, and we have to be vigilant about them. But when challenges arise, you have to be steady and firm. The same happens with wholesale and distributors.
Those processes you used to follow become useless with time. It becomes challenging for you and your business to grow and work like before when your business was new. The exact process that provides you the ease of access starts to become useless.
When challenges arise, you must be vigilant and ready to handle them. Gladly, this is where ERP comes in handy. ERP helps in improving real-time visibility of process and inventory management. An enterprise resource planning (ERP) system can allow it if your business is at this point. The systems can make running a small business more efficient. It can resolve a lot of the pain points you are dealing with.
Here are the top two wholesale distribution pain points ERP can solve.
Warehouse Management Woes
Small business owners find warehouse management to be a big problem. It is so difficult to keep track of everything. You might only know once customers call to complain that your orders are falling through the cracks.
You can use an enterprise resource planning system to manage warehouse management problems. It’s harder for your orders to fall through the cracks with the system because you can see them at a glance.
Henceforth, you can route orders to suitable warehouses and pre-process the orders alongside monitoring your inventory counts across multiple locations to ensure you don’t make too many orders.
Breakdowns in Communication
First of all, you need to understand that it is easy for communication to break down. By the time you receive the message, you have yet to learn if it is accurate, on time, or in the worst-case scenario, you might not even get it.
It is where the ERP solution comes to the rescue. For your business, for you, and for your employees working to improve your business. It helps everyone stay on the same page while improving not only the communication but all the communication and
Lack of Real-Time Visibility
Having real-time insights into your business’s information is crucial, and all companies must have one. Especially to have an insight into all the operations, particularly for the distributors and wholesalers. If you don’t have the information, it won’t be easy.
It becomes more complicated when your wholesalers and distributors use different software for various activities. And so it will make your real-time visibility more challenging to get all the information in one place.
For better real-time visibility, ERP software breaks down the walls of difficulty by providing the better information flow you need. This information flow collects all the data from all your organization, not just for one department.
It will gather data from all of them, be it finance. Inventory. Procurement or even sales. With ERP, you can access and utilize the information for all areas of your organization. Identify the profitability and visualize all other factors that may give you a better insight into your business.
You can also make a better cost identification that may or may not influence your business profitability. Real-time visibility for your business wholesale and distribution is just one step away. A better solution that may give your staff the ability to benefit your organization and provide you with a significant competitive edge.
The Menace of Ineffective Inventory Management
There is another excellent industry-specific issue that wholesalers and distributors should point out from the obvious. The ineffectiveness of inventory management is an issue that costs all the related entities huge costs. If we list down the poor outcomes expected from poor inventory management, it will look something like this:
- Stockouts during periods of intense demand
- Overstocks during periods of low demand
- Increased expedited shipments
- Inadequate early inventory planning
- Missed reordering deadlines
A poor management solution leads to a delayed reaction time and erroneous inventory reporting. The points mentioned above are the outcome of inadequate inventory solutions and the challenges in inventory management.
Inventory management challenges can be mitigated with the help of some of the most crucial points. If you managed to automate some of the most critical processes like:
- Stock monitoring
- Highlighting important inventory patterns
- Improving demand forecasts for inventory goods
- Wholesale Distribution
For better Inventory management that will nullify the ineffectiveness, ERP software can help optimize inventory management. It expedites the response time, as we mentioned earlier, and creates a precise report that can guarantee that you have enough products and the correct demand and supply.
The tremendous demand and supply can give you a perfect overview of when the market is high and when the demand is low.
You can also integrate a WMS into your ERP software to help you with a controlled inventory using proper barcodes. These barcodes will increase the ease of access, and you can use mobile devices and barcode scanners to scan your products.
ERP software optimizes inventory management. It highlights when the demand is high and eliminates overstocks when demand is low. A warehouse management system (WMS) may also be integrated with your ERP software, making it easier to control inventory using barcode scanners and mobile devices in your warehouses.
The Solution Offered by ERP
Now let’s talk about the solution offered by ERP. We all know the challenges that wholesalers and distributors face each day. All these challenges are unique for each sector of the wholesale and distributors. Among the top two pain points that we discussed above, there are some more:
- Problems with inventory management
- Supply chain interruptions
- Inefficient workflow processing
- Unhappy customers
Wholesalers and distributors can quickly expand their business if the pain points are addressed correctly. The problem areas are tough to handle. The root problem should be addressed if distributors and wholesalers need a proper solution. One of the main issues is the need for more insight into their business process.
The software shows the insight into business operations they need to remain competitive.
Additionally, it streamlines their procedures, dismantles informational silos, and removes bottlenecks. ERP software can help solve unique problems in their industry that might stop expansion.
ERP software not only gives businesses a competitive advantage but also streamlines operations. It is the perfect tool businesses can use to expand, and we are not talking about slight expansion. We are talking about a significant level of expansion that might change the nature of business.
NetSuite Helping Wholesale & Distribution
NetSuite is an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system that helps improve the real-time visibility of processes and inventory management. With NetSuite, wholesale distributors can track inventory levels, see how much they have in stock, manage customer orders and shipments, and more.
NetSuite’s ERP software is built on a robust platform that enables users to manage their business operations effectively. The company’s ERP helps to ensure that the proper inventory is in the right place, at the right time, and in the correct quantity; it is the ultimate goal of any business, and NetSuite is here to help you achieve it.
We hope this blog post helped you understand how NetSuite is helping Wholesale and distributors better understand their business.
