Are you losing hold of inventory control? Then, your business is certainly at a growing stage, but you have not upgraded your system to support your growing business needs yet. Yes, we are talking about upgrading your system with Inventory Management Software.
Initially, you can manage your inventory levels using a manual way. When your business grows, your customer base count grows, thereby, it requires managing warehousing operations, especially inventory control and order fulfillment.
So, this is the time when you need to upgrade your system capabilities to fulfill not merely your ongoing business needs but even to support your growing business flow further.
According to Fortune Business Insights, the inventory management software market was recorded at USD 2.13 billion in the year 2023. Further, it is expected to reach USD 4.84 billion by the year 2032 at a CAGR of 9.7% for the period 2024-2032.
According to Gartner reports, businesses that are currently using manual methods or using third-party tools to manage their inventory levels are switching to inventory management software due to overcoming their business challenges such as ‘Inefficiency’, Limited ‘Functionality’, and ‘Unreliability’.
So, it’s quite clear about the importance of inventory management software and how its adoption is rising continuously across the global business world.
After gaining the vitality of inventory management software, let’s have an overview of inventory management software. For instance, how it works and supports your day-to-day workflow across your warehouse(s) along with considerable factors for choosing the right solution for your business.
Searching for the Right Inventory Management Software? Things to Consider!
So, you are ready to initiate your search to choose the right solution for your business. Here are potential factors that you need to consider before coming up with one of the best inventory management solutions:
Consider your business requirement
As the first step, it would be a great idea when you come up with your business requirements first. For instance, what exact business practices do you want to simplify with inventory management software?
In this, you can consider the processes that you want to simplify, the number of end-users that are going to use the newly implemented system, the complexity level of your supply chain, multi-warehousing needs, reporting & analytics requirements, etc.
Features to look out
Well, a unique business may require a different set of features and so you require. However, there are some common and must-have features that you should keep in mind while choosing the right inventory management tool.
Inventory Control & Monitoring
Having eyes on your inventory flow could be an imperative deal for your business. To have better clarity on this statement, let’s include a use case.
What if your customer places an order and your warehousing team finds that the order is not available in your warehouse? Now, this may disappoint your customers when you cancel their orders due to an out-of-stock situation.
In the lack of an inventory management system, you may also overstock the items that are not sold more likely. In this case, you may compromise in terms of ordering those items that you need to order from your vendors to fulfill customer demand due to lacking space in your warehouse.
So, you see how crucial it is to control and monitor inventory levels. Thus, make sure that your inventory management system comprises inventory control and monitoring features.
This will help you keep updated with the inventory levels available on the shelf, in the pick pack ship process, or even lying in a put-away.
In case of having multiple warehouses, your inventory management software should be capable enough to manage inventory transfer and inventory adjustments. This in turn can help improve your customer experience, increase your productivity, and streamline your business flow.
Multiple Sales Channels
The capability of managing multiple sales channels can help you streamline your sales activities and simplify your inventory flow across multiple warehouses. So, this is an essential functionality that you need to imbibe in your inventory management tool.
This can also help you drive, monitor, and track different sales campaigns. If you have a global presence, leveraging multiple channels can be a great fit for your business wherein you can seamlessly categorize and effectively manage your inventory levels.
Extensive Reporting & Analytics
Another vital feature that comes to this list is reporting & analytics. For a better understanding, let’s have a use case.
Since you are reading this blog, certainly, you are not using any ERP system or inventory management software yet.
In this case, it is very common that you might be dealing with overstock and understock situations. Your warehousing team has no idea of whether the items are available on the shelf which are received in the sales order.
Moreover, manually managing inventories may not help you to know which inventory items have more sales and which have less.
Again, you won’t be able to transfer inventories from one warehouse to another if the sales order is generated for Warehouse 1 and the inventory is available in Warehouse 2.
When your situation matches the above-mentioned statements, there might be possibilities of lacking customer trust, retention rate, and business outcomes.
Thus, all you need is inventory management software or ERP system equipped with inventory management facilitation to smoothly monitor and optimize your inventory levels.
Purchase Order & Bill Generation
To restock your items that are continuously leaving your shelf, it is important that you choose a business solution configured with functional capability i.e. purchase order and billing management. This will help you generate and raise purchase orders for your vendors whenever your shelves start leaving space.
You can even automate the purchase order and bill generation process once your inventory level gets down. So, can you see how efficiently you can manage your inventory levels using the right inventory management software.
Multi-Warehousing Management
When your business grows, the need to store inventory items increases. As a result, you start having multiple warehouses in multiple locations to ensure a smoother supply chain process, streamlined order fulfillment, and improved customer experience.
However, acquiring all such by manually managing your inventory levels in your warehouses can reserve a doubt. But yes, this can be made possible by upgrading your system with inventory management capability.
With this, you will have access to what inventory count is available in which warehouse, and what required items can be transferred and adjusted to different warehouses to streamline order fulfillment and ensure seamless delivery to the customer.
Integration capability with other systems
No matter where your business is lying at this moment, you cannot deny your growing business needs. And so, you need to keep your future requirements in mind i.e. integration needs.
So, make sure that you are choosing one of the best inventory management solutions that can be integrated with other systems to keep data in sync and continue streamlining your business flow.
For example, if you are using an accounting/finance platform as well, before finalizing the business solution, ask the provider whether their inventory management tool can be integrated with your accounting platform or not.
Ease of use for end-users
Obviously, your end-users are going to use your finally implemented system. It is salient that the interface of your inventory management system should be easy to use and navigate.
This will help your users to quickly understand and adopt the newly upgraded system during end-user training. As a result, reducing the chances of errors and increasing efficiency from day one.
Budget is always the primary factor
Before making a final call for an inventory management system, consider your budget and total cost of ownership. You can ask your provider about things such as initial subscription cost, additional cost, integration cost, cost of training & ongoing support, etc.
Enquiring about such details will help you understand the total cost so that you can manage your requirements accordingly.
Scope of Scalability
If you are seeking inventory management software, you are already at the growing stage and certainly, you will continue growing. So, here you need to choose the system that can accommodate your growing business needs.
So, ask your provider whether their inventory management tool will be able to manage the rise in the product range, inventory volume, and inventory levels when your business scales.
Time to Choose the Right Solution for Your Business? Choose LionO360!
Experts at LionOBytes are ready to discuss and answer your questions. You are just one step away from us. All you need to do is to connect and talk to our experts.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the benefits of using inventory management software?
Inventory management software can help you align your inventory levels, streamline your inventory flow, and faster your order fulfillment which in turn drives efficiency and minimizes costs.
Can inventory management software integrate with business systems?
Yes, you can integrate with almost all the business systems. To get more details, connect to LionOBytes.
Is inventory management software secure?
Yes, at LionOBytes, our LionO360 ERP equipped with an inventory management module ensures data security and reliability. With multi-factor authentication, you can decide whom to provide access to and prevent unauthorized access to your inventory management system.
To protect your sensitive data, the LionO360 system also comes with a 128-bit encryption method that ensures a high level of security for your sensitive data.
