Inventory management is all about managing and keeping track of a company’s stock. The process is important for businesses of all sizes, across industries, as a company’s inventory is one of its most valuable assets. It is no surprise then, inventory management is critical for most manufacturing and retail businesses to optimize their profits, manage demand and supply, and not waste limited storage space on unpopular items.
Using an Inventory Management System
Most companies manage their inventory daily as they place orders for products and deliver orders to customers on a daily basis. However, businesses often find it challenging to maintain an optimal inventory level without running extra expenditure while ensuring that supply of goods meets their demand.
Many businesses, therefore, prefer to use an inventory management software to keep track of all their inventory, sellers, orders, and other steps involved in the supply chain.
Today, most inventory management systems are based on the cloud, making them fully scalable and customizable, which means functions can be added, removed, or altered in the software according to your business requirements. Some businesses, of course, still use Excel or on-premise ERP systems for inventory management. However, these systems lack the real-time visibility and scalability offered by a cloud-based inventory management software.
Determining the Right Inventory Management Software for Your Business
In order to determine the right material management software for your business, you must consider your present needs as well as your plans for future growth. Do you know the challenges you face with your current workflow? Can your inventory management system scale along as your business grows, or, is it flexible enough to facilitate change as other business processes evolve over time?
Excel and many other on-premise inventory management systems lack the functionality to analyse data and predict demand. Besides, such systems are incapable of automatically updating inventory records through barcode scanning and might throw up data security issues as well. To overcome these limitations, today, most inventory management software is based on the cloud, offering a robust alternative to manual inventory management or on-premise ERP software.
“According to the Supply Chain Digest, 6.5% of WMS (warehouse management systems) users are currently on the cloud. That number will jump to 35.4% by 2020.” Here’s how cloud-based inventory management can change your business for better:
Anytime, Anywhere Access to Data
With your inventory in the cloud, you can access your business data anytime, from any place, internationally or locally. Such visibility into inventory data is critical to match supply and demand to meet customer expectations in a timely manner.
A cloud-based inventory management software, therefore, enables you to gain visibility across multiple warehouse locations and manage them centrally or by location, according to your requirement, seamlessly.
Customization and Scalability
A cloud-based inventory management software is highly customisable. Your vendor can customise your solution to mirror your inventory workflow, leading to improved overall efficiency. In addition, cloud-based inventory systems are easily scalable to meet your growing inventory as you expand your operations.
As your business grows, a cloud-based inventory management system offers you more sophisticated features as well as an unlimited capacity to integrate more information and users.
Flexibility of Operation
In time, it is possible that there would be changes in the way your company operates. Thus, it is essential to have an inventory management system that evolves with you. A cloud-based inventory management software is built to be flexible, allowing you to customize the software as you grow, to support your unique requirements. The best part is that the customization made by you continue to run seamlessly even as your vendor periodically upgrades the software.
Unlike Excel or desktop-based applications, the cloud frees your supply chain management from the limitations of a fixed desktop location. With cloud-based inventory management, your employees get access to real-time data on any device, including their mobile phone, as well as metrics-driven data analysis to improve performance.
At Zenscale, we offer a robust cloud-based inventory management software that is fully customisable to enable efficient material management for businesses. Our powerful inventory software will give you complete control over your inventory through automated logistics tracking, real-time inventory reporting, and access to a master database containing all materials for adequate warehouse management.