How An Inventory Management Software Can Help You Manage Your Inventory Effectively in the New Era?

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Managing inventory and keeping a track of your stock becomes tougher when your business grows by moving into new sales channels and various markets. The increasing sales results in higher-order volumes that ultimately level up the complexity of handling and fulfilling new orders driven from multiple sales channels. That’s where manually managing your inventory becomes highly challenging for businesses.

Manual inventory management brings a bundle of inventory challenges that not only impact the business growth but also business efficiency. From having to process orders from each sales channel to keeping a regular track of inventory and then updating the information across each platform, all take a significant amount of effort and time. And the time taken to reconcile this information will result in a lack of visibility in real-time stock levels. With this, business owners will miss the opportunity to reorder the stock at the right time, therefore, stockouts will lead to a business loss and a reduction in sales.

So as companies scale and extend to reach global marketplaces, the complexities grow and require more specialized solutions to ensure effective supply chain management.

Today, technology is ruling everywhere and adding the convenience of managing business operations right from the palm. That’s where inventory management software solutions have outshined as the perfect systems that automate the previously manual processes and increase efficiency, accuracy and speed of operations. All thanks to a mobile app development company that has brought a revolutionary change in warehouse management and provided better control over inventory. Being integrated with such advanced inventory management and controlling features, IMS solutions are seamlessly transforming the management of inventory and empowering decision-makers with real-time insights into inventory.

You don’t need to take our words, here are the market statistics that you can trust!

• According to survey reports, 36% of supply chain professionals believe that optimizing inventory through software is essential for business profit and growth.
• Survey reports say that supply chain firms have experienced a 30% improvement in their stock efficiency using the IMS solution.
• Moreover, companies have experienced a 25% increase in their productivity with the implementation of IMS.

Top inventory management software is embracing such innovative features that provide a better way to store, organize, manage and analyze inventory data. It helps organizations to keep track of all incoming and outgoing stock on clouds enabling them to meet customer demand and cut down the risk of overstock or stockouts. So before you get straight into the process of hiring an app development company to customize the inventory management solution for your business, let’s take a look at how IMS solutions work well and offer several benefits.

3 Major Ways Inventory Management Software Is Addressing Inventory Issues in the Modern Era

Undoubtedly, there is a wide variety of solutions available on the market, offering different services. Starting from the basic versions that help you manage simple operations like stock counts to full-fledged advanced IMS solutions tailored to handle all complexities of inventory management. There is a mobile app to deal with different inventory management challenges. But, here we’ll go over the main features of IMS that help you understand how it is bringing a huge host of benefits.

• Automated Inventory Management With Digital Barcoding and RFID Tags

Potentially, one of the biggest benefits that IMS solutions have added to warehouses is automation. From saving endless hours to eliminating the risk of human errors, automated IMS solutions are empowering eCommerce businesses in several ways.

It helps you implement a system in place that is capable of executing repetitive tasks with little manual help. All you need is to set up software with a set of rules. Automated IMS not only gives you real-time visibility of stock level bust but also enables you to forecast the inventory.

But the question is how does it help you control inventory with real-time tracking?

Barcode scanning and RFID (Radio-frequency identification) systems are the two major tools catering to improved inventory management solutions.

Digital barcode scanning provides the possibility to process inventory data speedily with no burden of accessing documents and manual counting. This way inventory automation reduces the risk of having errors and simplifies the process of tracking stock.

On the other hand, RFID tags are another scanning capability that help increase accuracy and reduce common issues of mishandling.

• Ensuring Better Inventory Planning and Forecasting

Whether you are a startup or a leading enterprise- accurate reporting and planning are the keys to any successful business. But inventory planning, optimization and forecasting customer demands on special events or occasions is a tedious task for businesses dealing with multiple warehouses in different locations.

The modern age IMS solutions take your inventory planning and forecasting to the next level with careful stock optimization. A software system is well integrated with all of the marketplaces and sales channels you sell on along with the shipping and 3PL partners. All you need is to hire a software developer to create a platform that helps you have all important insights in one place. This will ensure accurate inventory reports and provide real-time visibility across your business. Overall, this practice allows for better business decision making, perfect inventory planning and forecasting. Further, this will save on cost and avoid holding the unsold stock or at the wrong location.

But the central question is, how do companies decide how much and when to invest using IMS solutions?

The simple answer is — Technology!

Embracing the power of data learning technologies like Machine and Artificial Intelligence, IMS solutions help analyze the historic and current trends of stock reordering and come up with recommendations based on customer behavior. Apart there are a number of techniques that businesses can implement in an effort to optimize their inventory and make better decisions.

• Just-In-Time Approach (JIT)
• Dropshipping and Cross Docking
• Backordering
• Safety Stock
• First-In, First-out Vs Last-in, Last-Out (FIFO vs LILO) Approach

Using all such approaches, IMSs fine-tuned the optimization process and automate the necessary calculations and analysis to make a better decision on further ordering.

• Generating Analytical Reports for Inventory Management

To enhance workflow and improve inventory planning, you also need to know where exactly your business stands. The only potential way to identify your weakness is to monitor your performance by bringing a complete picture of your business into the frame. Collecting and analyzing data across different modules and departments in one place will help you analyze the management of inventory.

That’s where warehouse inventory management software assists in creating multiple inventory reports including incoming stock reports location reports, inventory value reports and more. With these system-generated reports, businesses can track order and shipment status, monitor their suppliers, track production efficiency metrics, generate sales summaries and more.

In modern times, expanding your business to the next level is a tedious task especially when you are not sure what to improve and what strategies you need to implement your business. However, IMSs can help you visualize your transaction history to identify sales and purchase trends. Besides, IMS solutions also enable you to analyze the performance of your sales channels and customer behavior to help you make an informed decision.

Possibilities of Integrating Inventory Management Software Into Your Business

No matter whether you are running an eCommerce business or managing a warehouse or in the supply chain industry, inventory management is an important part of your business but not your only business function.

To operate each major functionality of your business, you may have already implemented other pieces of software such as ERP systems, CRM systems, sales channels, customer service software, 3PL and more.

So the question is how easy it is to integrate IMS software with other business tools?

The more integration an IMS system can support, the better efficiency of business operations will be assured.

Let’s check out the possibilities of integrating Inventory management software into your existing software…

• In case, if you already have business management software solutions in place such as ERP, then it is worth adding a separate IMS to create an effortless two-way data flow.
• In case you are already using dedicated software like eCommerce platforms, inventory planners, retail platforms, CRM systems and more for specific business functionalities then also there is a possibility to integrate it with your focused software. All you need is to connect them to enable data sharing.
• Apart from integrating IMSs with software, you can also connect it with such Physical devices such as barcode scanners, RFID scanners, credit card readers and more.

Apart there are multiple ways of integrating Inventory management solutions that help you streamline your business operations. But one such question that may be bothering you is — where to hire the best software development company, how much does it cost to create an inventory management software and what features do you need to consider. If you are also chasing all such questions then here is a solution for you…

Advanced Inventory Management Features to Consider in Mobile App development

Advancements in applications, databases and IT operations have created a market for modern inventory management systems. The digital transition of traditional inventory management systems to online full-fledged application-based developments was not possible without the integration of third-party APIs. So if you are planning to create an inventory management software, then here are the few modern features that you need to consider.

Modern Inventory Management System Features for Your Business:

• Internet of Things (IoT) Integrations: The integration of IoT technology in inventory management solutions can provide automated inventory controls and report by enabling digital labeling, GPS tracking and Bluetooth and RFID tracking. In addition, implementation of this technology in inventory management solutions will improve data security and cut down the risk of data theft and loss.
• Cloud Infrastructure: The biggest benefit of implementing cloud-based infrastructure is it is a flexible, scalable and cost-effect solution. It provides the ability to store, manage and access inventory information from anywhere, anytime. By hiring a software developer, you can easily incorporate this feature into your app solution. Cloud computing will ensure automated data backups, secure access and real-time collaboration across multiple locations.
• Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence: Gone are those days when you need to hire a dedicated team to provide customer support. The AI-empowered chatbots are quickly changing the way businesses share inventory updates with e-commerce customers. Moreover, ML and AI technology also help in providing better recommendations in inventory planning and forecasting. Monitoring the user behavior and analyzing the previous sales and order reports, helps you provide real insights and better predictions for reordering.

These are a few modern features that provide advanced support to your IMS platform but more integration in your app will increase your budget as well. So how much does it exactly cost you?

How Much Does It Cost To Integrate Inventory Management System In your Business?

Harnessing the power of the right warehouse management software will definitely help you reduce overstock keeping costs, increase profitability by meeting the customer needs and improve the efficiency of managing inventory information in one place. Automating your inventory management system will leave you more time for business planning and provide better time scope to focus on marketing. But at the same time, you must be curious to know how much does it cost to build an inventory management software.

Developing an inventory management solution will require proper planning, significant efforts and budget. Eyeing up the average cost to build an inventory management software without knowing your business requirements is like asking an invalid question. Even the highly skilled and experienced mobile app developers fail to answer this question when they are unclear about your business requirements, software expectations, target audience and more.

The simple mantra to determine the real estimation of your app development project is to understand the cost estimation factors of the mobile app which include:

• The complexity of the project;
• Integration of features and functionalities
• The complexity of App Interface
• Choice of the operating platform to launch an app
• The tech stack required for app development
• App Testing and quality assurance
• App development team and its hourly cost

These are the major cost driven factors of any app that you are looking to build for your business. If we conclude all such factors, then the average app development cost revolves around USD 20,000 to USD25,000+ depending upon the business requirements.

Before you make any decision or get confused about app development costs, features and technologies, then we recommend you to book a free consultation slot with experts.

In a Nutshell

At the end of this blog, it is fair enough to say that technology-driven inventory management software has provided much-needed support to businesses using omnichannel strategy by offering enhanced visibility of inventory at every stage of the supply chain.

In a fast-paced life where customers are demanding faster and better services, companies can look for the best app development company that can help you streamline your operations on the back-end and delight customers with quality customer services.

So if you are ready to digitize your inventory management system, then you can reach out to us to learn more about IMS and find out what we can do for your business!