When your warehouse is the heart of your business, you can’t afford for it to skip a beat. Finding the right inventory management software is vital to keeping that heart healthy, but it’s hard to know where to start. Blue Link has been perfecting the art of inventory management for almost 20 years. I spoke with company President Mark Canes about how businesses can find the best fit for their needs. He says it has to start with a thorough assessment of your current business practices, especially when the software you’re purchasing will support a critical part of your business. There are four things your business should do before you start your software search:
1) Get a clear picture of your current process
You should not only understand the intricacies of your current inventory management processes, but also everything that it touches. It’s particularly important to map out how your inventory management process interacts with your accounting practices. Most likely these two aspects of your business are already very closely integrated.
2) Document the inefficiencies and bottlenecks in your current process
As you map out a clear picture of your current process, you’ll start to notice the problem areas in your current operations. Once you identify these problems make sure to quantify them. Whether you measure in lost hours or profit, this is an important metric to later help you determine if your processes are improving.
3) Look for opportunities
These may not be problem areas. They could be things like automating a manual process or reducing the number of shipping errors even further. Blue Link has a client who regularly kept a large inventory of spare parts, but never knew when they had too many spare parts. Their client realized that by using inventory management software they could identify surpluses and work to sell those parts.
4) Get realistic budget estimates
Specifically, what is the cost for the software properly implemented? It doesn’t need to be exact, but come up with a ball park range so when you look at options you will know, up front, whether or not your company can afford them. Note: do not ask software vendors how much their product costs while you’re in the early stages of your search. There are better places to go for this information, like industry blogs or LinkedIn Answers.
Completing these four steps before you start to build your software search requirements will help you build a better idea of what you need and will also help highlight areas in your internal practices that need to be fixed before adopting new software. A little business soul searching will result in a smarter software decision and a better business in the long run.
Comments (1)
Hi Alexandra, just discovered your blog and find it interesting. Great tips before purchasing for a suitable inventory management software. And the bottom line for business owners is know thy warehouse first internal and external processes and operations.
Great blog! Very informative!