Why B2B Organizations Need an Advanced Order and Inventory Management Solution

Editor’s Note: Jay Black is Client Executive, IBM Sterling

Many B2B companies, including those in automotive, electronics, and manufacturing, are at a crossroads with their sales and inventory management processes. Historically, they’ve been reliant on legacy or ERP systems – tools that were designed for predictable, back office business processes. As B2B commerce becomes more digital, these organizations require a system that is more agile, scalable, and adaptable to meet customers’ changing needs.

“With our homegrown solution, there was no single record for deals or inventory information unless you went back and tried to reassemble things¬¬– which in many of our back offices was impossible.”

As supply chains either rapidly slowed down or accelerated in 2020, the lack of agility in these tools became abundantly clear. Manual processes are also making it more challenging to adapt in a time where disruptions are everywhere. By relying on manual processes, organizations are subject to increased human error, delay of goods, and higher costs to do business. On top of these challenges, B2B consumers are demanding a more B2C experience with seamless ordering and self-service, and manual processes can’t deliver.

An omnichannel order and inventory management solution empowers your business to maximize results by automating business rules that are right for your customers and your company, while supporting the agility and scalability requirements driven by today’s customer expectations.

Let’s explore the benefits in more detail:

Many B2B companies, including those in automotive, electronics, and manufacturing, are at a crossroads with their sales and inventory management processes. Historically, they’ve been reliant on legacy or ERP systems – tools that were designed for predictable, back-office business processes. As B2B commerce becomes more digital, these organizations require a system that is more agile, scalable, and adaptable to meet customers’ changing needs.

As supply chains either rapidly slowed down or accelerated in 2020, the lack of agility in these tools became abundantly clear. Manual processes are also making it more challenging to adapt in a time where disruptions are everywhere. By relying on manual processes, organizations are subject to increased human error, delay of goods, and higher costs to do business. On top of these challenges, B2B consumers are demanding a more B2C experience with seamless ordering and self-service, and manual processes can’t deliver.

An omnichannel order and inventory management solution empowers your business to maximize results by automating business rules that are right for your customers and your company, while supporting the agility and scalability requirements driven by today’s customer expectations.

Let’s explore five key benefits in greater detail:

1. Automate sales orders
With the help of the right B2B order management system, you can accept orders via multiple sales platforms, saving time as you easily manage your inventory, create a new order, update an order, and process the payment. Consolidate sales information from multiple channels so you can track your inventory and orders in a single platform. This gives you the flexibility needed to source and allocate orders more efficiently across your network. As Bob McAdoo, Vice President of Worldwide Business Systems at Parker Hannifin commented about their use of OMS for B2B environments such as automotive, “We are making it easier for customers to do business with us than ever before, and empowering our teams to service those customers more efficiently.”

2. Reduce manual work
An advanced order management solution processes large B2B orders at the line level — providing more flexibility around splitting orders and managing different workflows on the same order. Sourcing rules are much more extensive to support scenarios like order prioritization, substitutions, and customer level requirements.

3. Real-time global inventory
Getting up-to-the-minute inventory tracking and accurate available-to-promise data with a global view of inventory across all your business units is invaluable both in terms of cost savings and increased productivity. Having one picture of inventory enables you to accurately sell omnichannel inventory, including in-transit, and allows your customers to place one consolidated order with a single invoice. McAdoo of Parker Hannifin shared their own efforts to consolidate systems to simplify inventory management processes saying, “We have a couple of centers that used to have to log in to about 17 different systems to view our operations. Now they essentially go to just a single screen.” By reducing over-promising through identifying exactly what inventory you have and where it is, with stock thresholds and alerts ensuring you always know when to replenish to prevent lost sales.

4. On-time delivery
B2B customers have high expectations for on time, in-full (OTIF) delivery, and some may have pre-established SLAs to hold you to that promise, with penalties when the order is not received on time. Failing to meet these expectations can impact your brand’s reputation, customer satisfaction, and future sales. With an order management solution that pulls together a real-time, multi-enterprise view of your inventory, you feel confident to meet your customers’ promises and expectations.

5. Grow your business
Scalability is important to meet increasing expectations, changing strategies, and organizational growth. An order and inventory management solution transforms your ERP to face these challenges head on. Whether you have an unusually high “peak” season, or your competitor has a recall that hurts their sales but skyrockets yours – the system can easily handle the automation, inventory fluctuation, and OTIF delivery promise. A scalable system gives you the capacity you need to succeed today and grow for tomorrow.

Order and inventory management solutions are perfect for B2B companies because they automate the typically manual, paper-based system that an ERP delivers to help drive increased efficiencies and improve business performance. And the best benefit of all? Order and inventory management solutions are built with one key competitive differentiator in mind; the customer experience.

As we return closer to a state of post-pandemic normalcy the great test of order and inventory management system will be put to task to meet the pent-up demand awaiting B2B companies. The question is, how many will be hamstrung by legacy systems that hinder growth and brand esteem versus those that have modernized their technology stack to improve business agility and supply chain resiliency?

SC
MR