Order management is the process of ensuring that an organisation’s orders are recorded, processed and fulfilled in a timely manner. The task requires the expertise of a dedicated order manager who can keep track of all orders placed and ensure they are fulfilled in a timely manner. It’s easy enough to define order management, but it’s a whole different ballgame to effectively conduct the exercise. Order managers are required to coordinate with suppliers, shipping and freight services and guarantee that the company can maintain the inventory levels for smooth service provision.
An order manager’s job isn’t easy. The ideal order manager maintains extensive records of all incoming and outgoing orders, analyse customer order patterns and represent the company to all logistical services vendors.
Order management is a job that requires dealing with extensive paperwork, understand business goals and align organisational processes with said goals. To explore the challenges faced by order managers across all industries, IBM conducted a survey of common order management challenges to make the following conclusions:
- 58% of all businesses face difficulties in processing orders on time and meeting order fulfillment deadlines
- 44% faced problems with workforce productivity and labor management
- 39% couldn’t keep up with order processing costs
- 26% found it difficult to coordinate separate facilities/departments relevant to successful order fulfillment.
From the statistics, efficiency and cost-effectiveness come out as two of the biggest supply chain concerns that organisations face. Coincidentally, there are also a startling number of business that use outdated or manual methods of the inventory and order management. A survey of over a thousand businesses in the United States offered the following insights:
- 18% of all small businesses still use paper and pencil inventory management
- 24% don’t even track their inventory
- 21% still use spreadsheets for inventory management.
The two sets of observations make it clear to us that there is still a long way to go before technology becomes an integral part of order management and organizational functions. For as long as businesses continue to ignore the role of technology in business there’s, they will struggle to overcome long-term inefficiencies which will reduce business potentials.
How Does an Order Management System Help?
An Order Management System (OMS) is software that automates order management and order processing across your organisation. Most of the problems highlighted by IBM can be easily resolved if companies deploy Order Management Systems, which are far more efficient than existing manual inventory and order management methods. An OMS will take on all the responsibilities that you personally might have to oversee. Some functionalities of an OMS include:
- Track order histories
- Track order spending
- Place orders from any place and at any time
- Schedule recurring orders for inventory or raw material
With the automation provided by an OMS, you can reduce the order fulfillment periods. Additionally, software is much more reliable than manual order and inventory management. Order management systems can update your inventory in real time and signal the initiation of an order fulfillment process the very instant that an order is placed.
If your customers place an order on your websites or mobile apps, the OMS will pass on indications like order quantities, specifications and alert the relevant agents to expedite order fulfillment. You won’t have to pass on the orders yourself, the OMS will create pending order notifications to even run the business in the absence of management. On the other side of the supply chain, as you place orders to continue production—you can automate the OMS to place orders according to schedules to ensure consistent provision and hence, order fulfillment.
An OMS fundamentally reduces order fulfillment times, reduces the risk of order processing errors, and reduces the need for order processing/management supervision. With improvements in order fulfilment capabilities and efficiency, you will reduce cost burdens, make order processing convenient and cement your market shares.
Don’t believe us? Industry experts have the following observations to offer about supply chain automation including OMS systems:
- Moving from a paper-pencil method to automated order processingincreases:
- Productivity by 25%
- Space usage by 10%–20%
- Stock usage efficiency by 15%–30%
- 70% of all supply chain executivesbelieve that supply chain optimisations (Like implementing OMS) will be the drivers of customer relations improvements.
- 66% of all organisationsbelieve that integrated analytics tools, as those found in OMS systems, are of critical importance for long-term business growth.
We can’t stress how important it is for businesses in the F&B (Foods and Beverages) industry to implement this tech. As the global food industry nears a valuation of $5650 billion, suppliers should expect much more competition from aspiring entrants into the market and greater demand burdens. With rising competition and the increasing use of technology that facilitates the growth of demand volumes, only improving order processing efficiency can help your business survive and thrive. The only possible way to improve order processing efficiency is by implement tech and software like an OMS, and here’s why.
The Functionalities and Benefits of OMS
Order management software have come a long way from the time when business owners used spreadsheets. Although many business owners use still use spreadsheets, the OMS is slowly making spreadsheet software redundant or obsolete. OMS systems can simplify data management and allow for accurate data analytics to make decision making/order management much easier. OrderTron’s OMS comes installed with a wide variety of functionalities that can significantly improve your organisational functions.
Some of these functions include:
Customer Management
OrderTron let’s business owners create individual customer accounts to help them keep track of their customer’s activities. Unique customer accounts can then be used to group these customers together according to similarities and differences, to streamline order management by group, specialised marketing strategies and many more. The customer management functionalities in our OMS allow you to track order histories, providing thorough information of the order itself. The order fulfillment process also becomes easier since you can send out orders to customer groups in close-by locations, plan out logistics by area and implement many other optimisation strategies.
Product Management
OMS systems are often installed with product categorisation functions, which let business owners separate each unique product type. With entire product catalogues, you can set pricing tiers, implement discounts across the category and easily keep track of product inventories as well. OrderTron’s OMS comes with separate categories for order units and billing units, you can keep track of the number of products separate from the units according to which they are billed. For example, you can have product categories for the number of soft drinks that are ordered, while a separate category for meat, which will be billed according to meat.
The two tiers of product management and cataloguing helps business owners create much more effective cost and revenue reports. You won’t have to separate product categories manually on a separate software because OrderTron will do it for you.
Order Management
OrderTron completely automates the billing procedure. The OMS will generate payment slips, receipts, billing details, invoices and any other documentation relevant to order fulfillment.
Furthermore, OrderTron lets you create separate categories for incoming orders according to company names, whether the order is in shipment or completed and the delivery dates. You can change the order details as you wish, to make order delivery much more efficiency and serve other purposes like that for promotion or marketing purposes as well. You can add additional notes to your orders and OrderTron will inform your customers of those details instead of you speaking to them directly.
Detailed Analytic Reports
This is perhaps one of the best features offered by OrderTron. The reporting tools in OrderTron can generate intricately detailed reports to help keep track of order statuses and extend the same information to the customer. Reports generated through OrderTron keep business owners updated on the status of the product, inventory levels and sorts orders according to revenues, order quantities and other similar filters. The customer can match their invoices against the order when the reports are sent to them and the business owner can make much better inventory management plans.
Push Notifications for Marketing
OrderTron allows business owners to send push notifications to inform them of new offers and products, or any products which were out of stock previously. With customised notifications to each customer group, you can make your marketing activities very effective.
Cloud-Based OMS
OrderTron is a cloud-based OMS which reduces the need for in-house hardware. You won’t have to spend too much money on maintaining databases without compromising on computing efficiency. The entire software will be hosted in dedicated databases that cost only a fraction of the cost of in-house databases.
Conclusion
At OrderTron, we can streamline your food business to improve long-term business potentials. With the functionalities offered by OrderTron, all of your order management problems become a thing of the past and you can improve organisational functioning to leave your competition reeling in the dust.
OrderTron is an Order Management System that helps foodservice wholesalers and suppliers improve inventory management for improved business outcomes. Our Order Management Systems are designed for Food Service Suppliers and Small Businesses, with Android and Apple iPhone applications for clients. Get in touch with us today for more information on our services or to take on our OMS for your business.