Here are five indications that your B2B company requires B2B order management software so you can create new value for both your clients and your company:
Inventory view in fragments
Are you confident that your data on inventory that is available to promise (ATP) is reliable enough for you to allocate it for on-time and in-full (OTIF) delivery? Is your inventory set up to provide the best possible fulfillment? Can you handle peaks in demand and disruptions, moving inventory to cut down on delays?
Is your answer no to any of these questions? Worry not; you are not alone in this matter. Many B2B businesses still rely on outdated technology or custom ERP systems built to their specific needs. These solutions never achieved the goal of visibility into inventory across your organization and the ecosystem of partners, suppliers, partners, and distributors. But if you can’t see your inventory, you can’t manage it well, respond quickly to problems, or provide outstanding B2B commerce experiences.
Distributors and manufacturers also experience blind spots due to a lack of inventory visibility. Distributors risk missing goods that may be drop-shipped for OTIF delivery and skip better customer outcomes if they can only see the inventory at their warehouse and not what is available at various supplier facilities. Additionally, industrial manufacturers can only give customers a real-time picture of incoming inventory ready to be promised if they know what is planned or currently underway in their manufacturing facilities.
You may improve fulfillment to meet the highest level of demand by adding an aggregated view of inventory to your current ERP or legacy system through b2b inventory management software, wherever it may be located across divisions, geographies, channels, and partners. You can make complex inventory tasks like segmentation and substitution simpler with the help of user-friendly tools, analytics, and automation. Additionally, real-time alerts enable proactive management of supply chain disruptions.
Absence of SLA Visibility
B2B customers utilize contracts based on service level agreements (SLAs) and thresholds to ensure they get the appropriate goods at the right location and time for the right price to reduce their business risk. They hold you accountable for that guarantee and impose sanctions if the company fails.
With end-to-end visibility across the supply chain ecosystem, contemporary wholesale custom inventory management software allows you to follow orders from request to fulfillment. You can continually manage against client SLAs using insights to enhance planning and execution, automated processes to quote and process orders more quickly, and dashboard alerts to track KPIs like OTIF or expedited freight.
Difficult Order Pricing and Validation
Complex orders are common, and company regulations and client contracts add additional rules and limits. Before their orders may be completed, some clients might be eligible for volume-based pricing or need to have particular SKUs validated. When human engagement is required to coordinate across several divisions and partners, these procedures slow down or stall.
With end-to-end visibility across the supply chain ecosystem, a contemporary OMS allows you to follow orders from request to fulfillment. You can continually manage against client SLAs using insights to enhance planning and execution, automated processes to quote and process orders more quickly, and dashboard alerts to track KPIs like OTIF or expedited freight.
Ineffectiveness of Manual Procedures
Consider all the touchpoints along the order lifecycle when manual, time-consuming, and error-prone processes are used. If staff participation is necessary for order execution, scaling for growth becomes more challenging the more complicated your order management process is. Employees cannot be aware of all the cost and profit drivers and real-time trade-offs that must be made to make the best decision when choosing the optimum fulfillment option.
When working with complex product and service configurations and fulfillment types, you can automate some operations and include AI-enabled insights to help staff members source and fulfill orders more effectively. Delivery estimates are made more accurate by integrating production schedules, sourcing possibilities, and inventory availability across many entities. You’ll decrease costly mistakes, identify the alternative with the real lowest service cost, enhance customer satisfaction, and lower business risk.
Consumer Expectations for eCommerce Experiences Can’t be Met.
Since B2B buyers now expect B2C marketplaces to set the norm, many B2B firms are pressured to create systems quickly. To satisfy customer demands, the supply chain must be transparent and scalable enough to handle demand spikes. However, a lot of B2B companies use outdated legacy systems and basic online catalogs to distribute orders, frequently on a “first come, first serve” basis. When you rely on conventional constructions for contracts, pricing, and configuration, it can be challenging to expedite new digital experiences.
Using B2B order management software designed for B2B to power eCommerce platforms offers faster and more effective delivery at the lowest cost-to-serve, especially during peak times.
Conclusion
B2B companies are under pressure to accept the eCommerce challenge and provide cutting-edge ordering and fulfillment services. If any of these five indicators apply to you and your company, you must consider implementing order management software to function modernly.