Surpassing 4 trillion USD in sales worldwide, digital retail – or eCommerce – has changed how supply chains operate and the efficiencies required of distributors to remain competitive. Now distributors need the right tech to improve their inventory management. Enter the inventory control system or stock control system, as it is also referred to.
These systems are the ideal way to not only increase your competitiveness but also save costs.
The Reason Your Business Needs An Inventory Control System
Without a stock control system to manage your inventory, your prospects of growth and potential profits will be adversely affected. Even if you don’t see the need to update your management systems, distribution businesses around you are advancing at a rapid pace, requiring you to embrace change. Besides, there are other benefits when using computer processes to handle your inventory; the primary benefit being improving warehouse efficiency and client centricity.
Warehouse Efficiency
How efficient is your warehouse? As the heart of your business, your warehouse should be as efficient as possible.
Most warehouse managers and distribution businesses may not recognize that their warehouses aren’t as efficient as they could be because they aren’t exposed to other more efficient warehouses. However, an inefficient warehouse costs more money to operate, so it pays to be 100% certain that your warehouse is efficient in every sense of the word.
As a business you spend more money on personnel, stock, redundancies, and errors that drive away customers, without an efficient warehouse than you would if you invested in improving your warehouse’s efficiencies.
With this in mind, the first way to determine if your warehouse is efficient is to analyze basic processes, to verify if any cracks or potential cracks exist. Some questions to ask would be:
1) Are you Maximizing your Space?
Warehouses are becoming smaller, but is yours?
A smaller warehouse is a sign of a streamlined use of space. Not every item needs to be kept in stock. Your inventory control system can help you determine what items need extensive supply and what items don’t. Even larger warehouses can make their spaces more profitable by maximizing the available space to stock more items that help them reduce lead times.
2) How Central is your Distribution Center to Your Growth Plans?
For businesses within distribution and manufacturing, warehousing should be a central part of your growth strategy. An analysis by Deloitte reveals that 79% of companies with high-performing supply chains achieve revenue growth that is superior to the industry’s average. If you want to achieve similar revenue growth, enhancing your distribution center should be the sole focus of your strategy.
Customer Centricity
Although the average retail customer is not a direct customer of a distributor or manufacturer, consumers are a critical component of supply and should be acknowledged when developing strategies. As a distributor, you too need to focus on the end-user, considering the end-user dictates the profitability of the retailer you supply. If the consumer isn’t satisfied with the product you’ve supplied the retailer, the retailer will have grounds to sever any links between your DC and the retailer.
In these instances, keeping lead times to an absolute minimum is both ideal and fundamental to growth. Inventory control systems are critical in this regard as they can ensure you are aware of your stock levels, can prompt reordering of stock in the required quantities when it diminishes and can ascertain delays within the supply chain. All of that means you're providing your retail clients – and by default, their customers – a better experience.
Why You Need To Digitize Your Inventory Control System
Human error is costly.
Even in this digital age, a surprising number of businesses – a staggering 43% – still use manual mechanisms to manage their inventory which is very inefficient and wasteful. Although these are usually smaller businesses, on a larger scale, the equivalent of this would be using an ineffective inventory control system that doesn’t incorporate necessary elements like RFID tracking, currency conversion, and multiple distribution centre management.
When you use unfit systems, you are also at the mercy of human error, which, as previously mentioned, is possibly the most wasteful – yet preventable part of managing a distribution centre or warehouse.
According to data gathered by Peoplevox, in 2017, over a third – 34% – of businesses shipped later than scheduled due to overestimating available stock. Events like these are preventable and demonstrate the advantage of using inventory control systems instead of relying on manual processes.
When you consider that more retailers are focusing on their supply chain and the value their supply chain adds, it’s easy to recognize that mistakes like these will have lasting adverse effects.
Retailers want to provide the end-user – the customer – with a better experience by focusing on acquiring distributors that improve cost-effectiveness and availability. With this criterion being foremost on your client’s minds, it is your duty as a business to determine how you can enhance your output and reduce your costs and how you can pass on those benefits. For distributors, the most effective way of doing that is to use an inventory control system.
At Antzman, our purpose is to ensure your distribution centre or warehouse is optimised. To do this, we have developed an inventory control system that implements processes that increase profitability and efficiency. Our software integrates seamlessly with existing systems, reducing the learning curve of the software to ensure DC and warehouse managers and staff can use our software almost immediately.
