Posts by admin

There are a number of factors that contribute to how organizations manage their inventory processes. Smaller companies with a single location may find it simple enough to have one employee do a manual check and keep track of updates with pen and paper, or maybe even a simple spreadsheet. While that may “work” for small companies, it’s hardly efficient and, like the old adage of putting all your eggs in one basket, it’s not good business to rely solely on one person to manage all the parts and supplies that keep your company moving.

This can be even more complicated for larger companies, especially those with many locations and where inventory storage spans multiple sites — sometimes across states, countries, or around the globe.

And when we’re talking about inventory, we’re not just referring to your products and the related supplies to produce them, but to everything your company needs in order to do business on a daily basis. That could include everything from paper and ink, to cleaning supplies, to products and more.

So how do you keep track of it all? How can you ensure you always have insight into your inventory — no matter where it’s stored or who is responsible for tracking it — at all times? How can you make sure you have everything you need, both short and longer term, to keep your company resilient?

As we’ve seen with the coronavirus outbreak, we never know when an unexpected supply chain disruption could happen, and we always need to be on top of where our supplies are—and who they’re coming from and when—so we can circumvent issues that could cause stoppages or delays.

Here are 7 tips to help you streamline and automate all of your inventory processes to ensure operational resiliency and improved efficiencies:

1. Toss the spreadsheets: Adopt and implement inventory management software that enables you to track, monitor, re-order, and process all of your inventory from within a single solution.
2. Inventory your inventory: One of the biggest challenges for most organizations is no real insight into what inventory you have, what you need, and where it’s all stored. Begin with doing an inventory of your inventory. But this isn’t just a list of the who/what/where. You should also categorize all of your inventory for simplified management. Here are some of the areas you could consider:
   1. Item criticality: How critical is this item to your operations? What is the impact on operations if you run low or run out of this item? If this item is a critical item for resiliency, you should categorize it to reflect that.
   2. Cost and usage: You could also categorize your inventory based on cost and usage level. For example, one category could be lower-cost items that you use frequently and require routine or frequent re-orders. Another category could be items that are mid-level in costs, that need re-orders but not as frequently as the first category. A third category could be those high-priced items that you need, but do not have to frequently reorder (and which also may require a different level of review and approval.)
3. Track your inventory: Once you’ve identified and classified all of your inventory, now it’s time to track it. There are a number of efficient ways you can do this, but you may find it beneficial to include the following information for each item for tracking:
   1. Product name
   2. Product type
   3. Lot and/or serial number
   4. Barcodes or near-field communication chips
   5. SKUs
   6. Vendor name, location, and contact information
   7. Location of inventory storage
   8. How/where item is used within your operations
   9. Responsible party
   10. Last order date
4. Routinely re-inventory your inventory: How often you check your inventory levels may depend on a number of factors. While some organizations do it once a year, or once a quarter, you may find more routine re-checks to be more beneficial, for example, at the end of each month. With inventory management software, especially one that integrates with an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution, you should always have insight into all of your inventory in near-real time. This makes inventory audits a breeze, and you can even create and share reports about inventory status at any time for more insight.
5. Understand your sales lifecycle: Managing inventory only works well if you know how much you need at a given time to meet customer demands, including when to anticipate peaks and valleys. Take time to get to know your company’s sales lifecycle, including company and industry trends for sales and lead times. You can also improve inventory management by integrating your inventory management software with your customer relationship management tool, that way you’ll be able to make better data-driven business decisions and ensure the inventory you need is always available when you need it.
6. Evaluate your suppliers: While many companies have good risk analysis strategies for their core functions, few remember to include suppliers in their risk evaluations. Each time you’re looking for a new vendor – or when you’re renewing or extending contracts with existing ones – you should do a risk analysis of each supplier. Just as you earlier determined which of your inventory is critical for operations, you’ll need to understand who supplies those critical parts, what risks those suppliers face for delivery, how they’re mitigating risks, and whether they meet all of your compliance and regulatory standards. If any of the vendors in your supply chain exceed the level of risk deemed acceptable by your company, you should replace that vendor with one with a more acceptable level of risk.
7. Automate reorders: It’s frustrating, and sometimes downright confusing, to check your inventory and wonder why you have so much of a product you rarely use and so little of a product that you need most often. That’s often a result of people-managed inventory, where there’s incomplete or inaccurate communication about needs and objectives, or sometimes even just a missed entry on reorder. By adopting an integrated inventory management solution, you can eliminate the possibility of human error by configuring your inventory reorder parameters within the software and then letting the system notify you when it’s time to do a reorder — all based on preset conditions you can modify or update at any time. You should also use a solution that can alert you when products are on backorder so you can quickly adapt and use a different supplier as needed.

There are a lot more benefits of using an inventory management solution to take control of your inventory management tasks. From improving efficiencies, to saving you money, and reducing errors, you can always ensure you have the right products you need when you need them, and reduce overspending and overstocking for good.

Do you need help managing your inventory or would you like to know more about how you can integrate inventory management with your other critical business operations? Register now to save your seat in one of our upcoming webinars.

2020 has been an unprecedented year and for many businesses, the move to a remote world for staffing, sales, and services has been a vital component for success and endurance.

As we’ve seen throughout much of the year, the pandemic has prompted an increasing number of consumers to say no to brick-and-mortar. Many are rapidly adopting online shopping for everything from household goods and clothing, to groceries, pharmacy, and more.

It’s expected that before the holiday season wraps up, we’ll continue to see an increase in online consumerism. One report from Adobe Analytics estimates this year will reflect a 33% increase in online sales just for the months of November and December compared to the same time last year. What’s that look like when you convert it to dollars? How about a whopping $189 billion!

While many were optimistic the U.S. government would approve another $1,200 per person stimulus push before the holidays, as the year begins to wind down it appears Congress has settled on half that – roughly $600 per person, which likely won’t appear in bank accounts until after the holiday shopping season. The good news is that this puts some much-needed cash in consumers' pockets as we move into the new year.

While holiday shopping is soon to be all wrapped up, it’s not too late to ride the online shopping wave into a thriving 2021.

Here are some ideas you can apply to be sure you’re all set for a happy new year and a successful 2021:

It’s All About the Experience

When it comes to shopping these days, whether it’s in store or online, experience is what it’s all about. If you haven’t done so already, now is the time to fine-tune your online experiences for your customers. When was the last time your online storefront had a refresh? Are all of your products up-to-date? Do you know exactly what you have in stock and where it is?

Few things are as frustrating as finding the perfect product or service you want, adding it to your shopping cart only to find out at checkout that it’s not available or to expect a delay. Make your customer experience the best it can be by ensuring you always have what your customers want in stock, when they want it. Consider integrating your online sales portal with your existing customer relationship management (CRM) system to deliver customized experiences – then go one step further and integrate it with your enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution. That means you can easily track your inventory, no matter how large or small your operations are, and you can make timely changes and updates to your online sales system that reflect your product availability.

Monitor Your Supply Chain

While we’re talking about that customer experience and frustrations that come with product unavailability, consider using an ERP not just for inventory management, but to help facilitate better supply chain management. As we’ve seen during COVID-19, one issue around the world can have a cascading effect on businesses around the world, leaving you in a lurch if you haven’t kept an eye on what’s happening across your supply chain.

Competitive Prices, Happy Customers

Think again like a consumer when you’re looking at your organization’s online shopping experiences. What do you like? Great prices and amazing products from trustworthy companies, especially to build a repeat consumer base. And most customers don’t like unexpected product price increases. Often, that happens with the lack of insight into your supply chain we just mentioned. If you are unaware of changes within your supply chain, and haven’t been keeping an eye on your supplier prices, you might be forced to suddenly (and what might feel unexpectedly to your customers) up your prices to cover your increased costs. An ERP will help you track your inventory costs and with customizable reports, you’ll never be caught off guard by an incremental price increase that went unnoticed, saving you from frustrating your customers when you suddenly mark your prices up.

Decrease Shipping Delays

Hopefully by the time the new year is upon us, most mailing and shipping companies will have caught up and packages will have made it home for the holidays. But even during less busy times of the year, a sudden influx in shipping and mailing (like we’ve seen during the pandemic) can cause unexpected product delivery and delays. And what happens then? You guessed it: bad customer experiences. Did you know, however, that you can help improve your customers’ shipping experiences by using a business management software (BMS) platform to track your sales processes from beginning to end? For example, by integrating your BMS with your CRM, you can get immediate notification of a sale, activate steps for invoicing and billing, collect payments, get your shipping processes started, and even track your products after they’re on their way to your customers. With this insight, you may even be able to anticipate possible delays or backlogs, communicate that to your customers, and offer alternatives or assurances to ease their frustrations. While you’re at it, if you have a product-return policy, be sure to make that clear to your consumers before purchase and help make your return processes as simple and user-friendly as possible.

Be Friendly – Especially Mobile-Friendly

If your website and online sales portal aren’t mobile-friendly, then you may be missing a huge portion of available consumers. According to Adobe Analytics, this holiday season more than 40% of all online sales will be on mobile devices, representing more than a 50% growth compared to last year. With more than 275 million smartphone users in the United States in 2020, it’s a smart move to be as mobile-friendly as possible as soon as you can. And the growth for mobile engagements isn’t expected to slow down. By 2024, for example, there will likely be close to 300 million smartphone users in the U.S. Don’t miss out on your slice of this market potential.

Make Your Online Shopping Cart Hassle-Free

If you’ve gone to a store during 2020 and needed to use a shopping cart, you know an already frustrating experience is even more complicated now. Do you sanitize your hands before, during, and after using the cart? Do you trust that someone else has wiped it down before you grab it? Where are those sanitizing wipes? Should I pick up that spray bottle? Who else touched it? While real-life shopping cart experiences are frustrating during a pandemic, your online payment and checkout methods shouldn’t be.

Did you know that early on in the pandemic, back in March 2020, Statista reported that more than 88% of online shopping carts were abandoned — with items in them — before the customer completed an online purchase. Ensure your customers’ check-out options are easy to understand and easy to use. Make it as quick and intuitive as possible. Consider integration with your CRM. If you do, and you allow your customers to sign in, you can go ahead and fill in a lot of the customer information you already have — like contact information — to speed up the process for happier, return customers.

These quick ideas can help your business ride the wave of online shopping into the new year. If you like some of these tips, but aren’t sure exactly how to apply them to your current business model, contact an aACE advisor and we can give you more insight into integrations and streamlined sales processes. And to learn more about how aACE can help you take your business to the next level in 2021, register for an upcoming webinar today.

"There’s nothing that we’ve come across that aACE hasn’t been able to handle." - Lane Carter, Co-Founder, Southwest Auto Accessories

The COVID-19 pandemic has altered lives around the world. With social distancing and mandatory “stay home” orders, business of all types have had to adapt to new ways of doing business. Unfortunately for many brick-and-mortar locations, that means slower business, and, for far too many, permanently closed doors and shuttered buildings.

There may, however, be a bright spot, and that’s with online sales and ecommerce.

According to Statista, for example, in May 2020, 52% of survey respondents said they were shopping online more frequently. Household and hygiene products saw an uptick in purchases, led primarily by a surge in online shopping for groceries. There were also increases for health and medicine, and other retail components such as furniture and home decor purchases.

There’s also been a noticeable increase in delivery services, through companies like DoorDash, enabling consumers to enjoy their favorite foods and beverages without having to leave the safety and comforts of home.

These increases in digital sales are great for a number of businesses that already had online sales portals, and likewise forced those who had been more hesitant to adopt an online retail presence to move forward with those options to stay afloat. And it’s not just in retail. We have also seen more digital-services offerings across multiple industries. For example, some businesses had not yet enabled digital bill-paying technologies for their websites, which have since been enabled, bringing benefits to both consumer and company.

The Sales Tax Conundrum

While an upswing in online commerce can be great for survivability during a pandemic, it also increases headaches, frustrations, risks, and liabilities for some companies, especially those who are not familiar with the changing and evolving laws related to online sales taxes.

In the early days of the internet (and for much of the span of online retail) most states in America did not collect sales taxes for goods purchased online. That was great for consumers because without the addition of a sales tax, they could purchase similar goods for less cost. It also helped fuel a growth in online sales because online sales brought a global market right into consumers’ homes.

But there was a downside to this approach for state governments, who often depend on general sales taxes to help fuel their annual budgets.

According to a report published by the Urban Institute, in 2017, for example, sales taxes fueled about 12% of state and local government revenue. With an increasing number of shoppers moving to online sales, it meant that those governments had a lesser chance of collecting the sales dollars for revenue support.

A Change in Direction

There is a general misconception that the internet has been a “tax-free” zone. In the U.S., remote and online sellers have been subject to state sales taxes within states that collect sales tax and where companies had a nexus (or connection) within that state.

In 2016, legislators in South Dakota passed a law that would allow it to collect sales taxes for online retail purchases made by residents, regardless of whether the seller had a nexus to the state or not. While there were some parameters, it enabled the government to start collecting taxes on sales it was otherwise unable to reach.

This new law ended up before the U.S. Supreme Court in a case of South Dakota v. Wayfair. Interestingly, South Dakota’s move was contrary to the 1992 Quill Corp v. North Dakota U.S. Supreme Court case, which determined that because of the Dormant Commerce Clause in the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution, states couldn’t collect sales taxes on resident-based purchases on out-of-state vendors that didn’t have a nexus in that state.

But a June 2018 Supreme Court ruling for South Dakota v. Wayfair overturned the Quill decision and gave states the ability to collect sales taxes for online purchases made by residents within the state, even if that business doesn’t have a physical location within the state.

Today, 43 of 45 states that collect sales taxes now also collect those taxes from online and remote sellers.

Understanding the Impact of the Wayfair Decision

As a result of the Supreme Court ruling, companies must now take a look at sales tax laws on a state-by-state level and properly collect and remit sales taxes for each state, where applicable.

Unfortunately, many companies – especially smaller ones – are not aware of the Wayfair decision and may not be accurately assessing those taxes as required by state law. For larger companies, the vast volume of state regulations, depending on reach, can make it challenging to accurately collect and remit those required taxes on time to avoid penalties.

If you’re new to this process, here are a few tips that can help ensure success:

First, you’ll need a sales tax permit or license in your nexus state. Whether or not you need additional permits for state and local sales tax collections in all of the areas where you may do online sales depends on a variety of factors, so be sure to check with each state’s department of revenue for specific requirements.

Next, you’ll need to collect sales taxes from your customers as determined by state and local law.

Finally, you’ll need to report those taxes and file them by a specified deadline. Again, each state and local government may have different requirements, so you’ll need to consult each for specifications.

Simplify Collecting and Filing

Instead of doing manual research and filing for every state where you’ll need a tax profile, you can simplify your tax collection processes by using a software that does the work for you. For example, aACE enables you to easily set up tax profiles for every state and individual jurisdiction where you do business. And for more complex requirements, our integration with Avalara AvaTax uses geolocation for precise, up-to-date tax rates every time you make a sale. aACE’s out-of-the-box tax tools make it easy to collect and remit applicable taxes right through one streamlined program.

To learn more about the aACE+ AvaTax integration, check out our feature highlight. And to discovery what else aACE can do for your business, register for an upcoming webinar today.

We've finally made it to the home stretch of 2020, and after such a tumultuous year you may be wondering how you can position your company to thrive in 2021 and beyond. Join us to learn how aACE can help you streamline your operations and take your business to the next level. Last month we covered topics ranging from the very basics of aACE to sales leads and accounting. Here's what we have on tap for December:

December 3rd – Tax Profiles and the aACE+ AvaTax Integration

Tax season isn’t anyone’s idea of the most wonderful time of the year. Fortunately, aACE has you covered through our out-of-the-box tax management infrastructure as well as the aACE+ Avalara AvaTax integration. Check out our feature highlight before the presentation to get a preview of how aACE takes the guesswork out of tax time.

December 8th – Shipping and the aACE Pick App

Your customers depend on you to get them the right products at the right time. Learn how aACE streamlines the pick, pack, and ship process with our Pick App and shipping integrations, and take a sneak peek by checking out our feature highlight.

December 10th – Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable

Take a deeper dive into aACE’s accounts receivable and accounts payable features. We’ll review the tracking, delivery, and follow-up tools in the Invoices and Purchases modules. We’ll also explore customer and vendor payments, deposits, and scheduling recurring transactions.

December 15th – Inventory Replenishment Management

Ensure you always have the right number of products at the right time with aACE's smart inventory reorder management tools. And to get a sneak peek at this powerful feature, check out our feature highlight.

December 17th – Production and the aACE Job Shop App

Your production process has a lot of moving parts, and your business depends on keeping them all running smoothly. Learn how aACE can help save time and reduce data entry errors with our robust production tools, including the aACE Job Shop app. Before the webinar, check out our feature highlight and demo video to get an advance look at the app.

We look forward to seeing you in our presentations! Register now to save your seat.

While the assembly line may be most well-known for changing the American manufacturing industry, the adoption of computers in industrial settings continues to revolutionize products we create and use today.

Seventy years ago, computers first emerged in manufacturing settings, kicking off the digital revolution that drives modern industrial processes. And, in recent years, manufacturers have become increasingly reliant on these technologies — everything from the controllers that run devices to the devices themselves.

The digitization of manufacturing settings brings about a number of benefits, such as process efficiencies and automation, while also introducing challenges, such as increased attack vectors for hackers and challenges finding skilled employees to manage, control, and secure these devices.

But the benefits show us the challenges are not deterring manufacturers from adopting new technologies. In fact, as we move deeper into the Fourth Industrial Revolution, we’re likely to see even more technological dependencies as machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) become even more valuable for data-driven decision-making in industries.

So if your business wants to better manage and streamline data and other important processes shared throughout your digitized manufacturing operations, where do you turn? An enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution may be just what you need.

First, What is Industry 4.0?

Industry 4.0 is a common term used to describe the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which is ongoing now. It encapsulates both the use of automation and increased digitization for modern industrial settings.

Let’s take a look at the historical timeline for the Industrial Revolution leading up to today:

First Industrial Revolution

• Late-1700s through the mid-1800s
• Introduction of new manufacturing processes, evolving from primarily people-based processes to processes driven by machines, thereby increasing capacity, efficiency and in many cases, speeding up processes and manufacturing as a whole

Second Industrial Revolution

• Mid-1800s through the early 1900s
• More advanced mechanical process expansion, often fueled by the use of electric power
• Highlights include evolution of telephone, water and sewage systems, rail lines, electric lines, and production lines, like for automobile production

Third Industrial Revolution

• Began in the 1950s
• Dominated by the addition of computers into manufacturing
• Also known as Industry 3.0, the digital revolution

Fourth Industrial Revolution

• Modern era
• The emergence and increased adoption and usage of IoT (Internet of Things) and IIOT (Industrial Internet of Things) devices
• More industry reliance on machine learning and artificial intelligence, as well as more movement into cloud computing

Now let’s take a look at what Industry 4.0 with ERP support looks like in modern industrial settings.

Many manufacturing operations have successfully implemented technologies such as computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided manufacturing (CAM). This software helps companies design prototypes and products and produce them. CAD/CAM are often supported by product lifecycle management (PLM) software, which helps guide product development. Data from CAD/CAM and PLM technologies can then be shared within other parts of your business, to help make better business decision decisions and better serve customers. This is a great place for ERP software to step in.

What’s ERP?

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software integrates your existing business processes and systems into a single solution to facilitate exchange of data and break down the silos that often slow operational efficiencies.

An ERP solution can facilitate data sharing from one system to another, thereby decreasing the need to manually input (or import and export) information from one part of your business to another. It helps increase efficiencies by removing manual, duplicated processes and also decreases the chance for errors that commonly occur during these manual (and often tedious) tasks.

In a modern manufacturing setting, an ERP integration it might look like this:

Let’s say you use a CAD/CAM system to design a product. The CAD/CAM product design is a part of your PLM. You know all the processes you must successfully go through to manufacture your product.

To manufacture your product, you need a variety of supplies from a third-party vendor. Your ERP can keep track of which supplies you need at which step of your manufacturing process, track your inventory, and even generate purchase orders when your supplies are low.

But your ERP can go even further. Once your product is designed, your ERP can also track your product inventory. That way you always know how much you have in stock and where that stock is stored, even if it’s in multiple locations around the globe. When you’re running low, you can use your ERP to set reminders to facilitate your production processes from start to finish so you never run out.

Imagine how great it would be to get supplies quickly approved, reordered, paid for, and tracked, without someone in the warehouse having to make a note of what’s needed and shuffle that through multiple departments within your company, while supply volume decreases as it takes time to check all the boxes and get all the approvals needed to re-order. You can let your ERP automate most of those tasks, speeding up processes and improving your overall customer service.

Now let’s go deeper. Not only can an ERP manage your product and supply inventories, it can even help you manage sales and orders for those products you’re creating. That’s right. A quality ERP will give you insight into everything from pending sales to product orders, billing, payments, and even shipping and receiving.

In a modern Industry 4.0 setting, you can add a layer of intelligence to handling and deciphering all of this shared data with machine-learning and AI algorithms that help you get a better handle on important things like how often you need to reorder products or setting a manufacturing schedule.

Another great thing about adding an ERP solution into your digitized manufacturing processes is you can tailor your ERP solution to meet your company’s specific needs. That can be everything from which components you use to the types of alerts and updates sent, to the number of users and their accessibility levels.

And, if you use a cloud-based ERP solution, you can even share this data with decision-makers not in your specific location so that valuable information is always available for data-driven decisions.

Want to learn more about what an ERP solution can do for your manufacturing business? Register today to save your seat in one of our upcoming webinars to see aACE in action!

"It’s a very dynamic order management process that we have to deal with, and because of the way aACE is built we've been able to achieve additional functionality by connecting our custom production-side software to the orders and the line items. The communication between aACE and that production system has been flawless." - Matthew Pelfrey, Director of Process and Compliance, Duggal Visual Solutions

 

Start our webinar cycle from the beginning and learn how aACE can help you streamline your operations and improve your bottom line. Last month we touched on topics ranging from the very basics of aACE to the complex worlds of inventory, production, and shipping. Here's what we have in store for November:

November 3rd – aACE Basics

If you’re brand-new to aACE, this is the webinar for you! Learn how aACE’s system-wide conventions make it easy for new users to interact with the solution. Check out our video before the presentation to get a sneak peek at aACE’s user-friendly design.

November 5th – Commissions

Discover how aACE's comprehensive commissions tools can help you incentivize your sales team and reward your affiliates for referring new business.

November 10th – Managing Transactions

aACE makes it easy to track each step of a transaction, giving you the peace of mind that comes from having one solution manage every aspect of a sale or purchase. We’ll explore how users manage transactions in aACE using the Purchase Orders module as our example.

November 12th – Recurring Transactions

Take an in-depth look at how aACE automates recurring transactions, allowing you to set up automated payments for bills you know are coming regularly. Check out our feature highlight on the subject for a sneak peek before the presentation.

November 17th – Sales Leads & the aACE CRM App

Your sales team is moving fast to keep your customers and prospects engaged, and they need a solution that can keep up – even when they're on the go. See our CRM App in action and learn more about how sales leads move through aACE. Check out our sales leads and CRM App feature highlights for a sneak peek before the presentation.

November 19th – Accounting Basics

Explore aACE’s GL Accounts module and learn how aACE makes it easy to print financial statements, navigate the general ledger, reconcile bank statements, and more. This webinar is very audience-driven, so come early and bring questions!

We look forward to seeing you in our webinars! Whether you're a seasoned aACE user or are considering aACE for the first time, our presentations have something for you. Register now to save your seat!

As we continue to evolve operational efficiencies to adapt to challenges created by the coronavirus pandemic, one thing is becoming ever more clear for businesses of all sizes: the value — and complexity — of our supply chains.

For many, supply chains have always been part of business continuity planning. But few, unfortunately, anticipated the scope and speed with which this outbreak would impact supply chains around the world.

Here are some of the many negative impacts supply chain disruptions can have on your business, according to a 2018 survey by the Business Continuity Institute:

• Financial losses (62%)
• Logistics issues (54%)
• Impact on your brand and reputation (54%)

But there is an upside. Supply chain management is now front-and-center for many executive teams. It’s a component of not just survival now, but scalability and success for the future.

Now’s the time to take advantage of the focus on supply chain management while you have everyone’s attention. Here are 8 suggestions to help you optimize supply chain management today so you’ll be better prepared for disruptions and changes in the future.

Understanding Your Vendor Needs

You can’t optimize your supply chain without first understanding its role within your company. To begin, you should make a list of all of the parts, products, and services you get from third-party suppliers.

Traditionally, when we think of suppliers, we think of tangible things, like the resources we need to make our products or the products we purchase and resell to our clients. But today’s supply chain is much more complicated. It also includes the digital services we get to do business. That can be anything from your human resources systems and payment processing software to your third-party point of sales.

This list should not just include what you get from suppliers, but also who the suppliers are and where they are located.

Remember, you’ll need a complete inventory of all of your suppliers. Don’t just list the ones you have current contracts with (although be sure to include them). Often, as relationships exist over long periods of time, some of the standardized processes we have in place like contract renewals fall by the wayside and we continue to work with some of our favorite vendors as a matter of routine.

An enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution is a great way to build and manage this list. It will play an important role in your supply chain success as you move forward.

Understand the Impact

Once you’ve created your list, it’s time to do a business impact analysis (BIA). Here are some important questions to answer:

• What are the most critical supplies and services you get from third-party vendors?
• Which suppliers provide these most critical services for your business?
• What would be the impact on your business if you experienced a delay or disruption of services from your supplier?
• Are you currently experiencing any issues of concern with these suppliers? If yes, what are they and can these issues (or risks) be mitigated or do you need to consider an alternative source?
• Are any of these vendors located in regions prone to disruptions (think geopolitical, weather, economic, etc.)?

Eliminate Single Source

In a good business sense, most of us know we should never rely on one supplier for our core parts and products. That’s been a hard lesson to learn for many businesses during the coronavirus outbreak.

Unfortunately, as processes change and people move in and out of a business, quick and often cost-saving decisions are made — and sometimes we end up with a single source for some of our most critical components. When that happens and we experience even minor or isolated disruptions, it can have far reaching — even devastating — impacts on our operations.

As you go through your critical services inventory, seek out these single source suppliers and begin your processes for sourcing additional supplier alternatives.

Get Out the Map

Earlier, we mentioned ensuring your vendor list includes location information. This isn’t just important for back-office functions like ordering and payments. These locations can help you map your critical suppliers to have a better understanding of where your supply chain originates and traverses to get to you.

Literally, take a look at a map and evaluate whether your supply source relies heavily on a specific country or region. If so, consider what would happen if there were a disruption there. What can you do to diversify your product sources so you can quickly readjust if an issue arises?

If you’re not already using an ERP solution to manage your supply chain, this is one place you can definitely reap the benefits. It’s certainly much easier to track and manage all of your suppliers in a single solution than spreadsheets or other manual methods.

Know Your Inventory

Now that you know all of your suppliers and what they contribute to your operational success, it’s also important to have a good picture of your inventory. Many businesses, even large ones, still rely on either spreadsheets or paper documents — or even worse, an employee’s memory — to manage inventory.

Did you know that almost half of all supply chain professionals still use excel spreadsheets?

Inventory insight is crucial not just to your overall success, but also to keeping your customers happy. If you don’t know how much inventory you have in stock — whether it’s a part to build your product or your products themselves — how do you know when you’re running low? Are you managing the ordering cycles to replenish? How are you aware of potential impacts of a supply chain disruption if you don’t know what you have in stock?

An ERP with inventory reorder management features can keep all of these details right at your fingertips, whether you have one location or many. And best yet, you can even set your ERP to automatically generate purchase orders for you so you’re never in danger of running out of in-demand products.

Know Your Costs

Because employees responsible for supply orders are often several steps removed from executive leadership, they may not be budget-focused when supplies run low. This can be especially complicated by existing business relationships where, for simplicity, supplies are repeatedly ordered from the same vendor whenever they run low or whenever your calendar reorder triggers.

The problem here is that you often lose sight of expenses. Incremental price increases over time can be missed and before you know it, you can spend thousands of dollars more on your products without realizing it.

An ERP with inventory management can help you stay within budget by tracking those cost changes over time. That way you always know what you’re spending and how it aligns with your budget. If you see costs increasing, you can get more out of your supply chain by considering other vendor options.

Improve Your Relationships

Having good relationships with your supply chain vendors is paramount to success. If you’ve ever missed a reorder or used more parts or products than anticipated, a good relationship with your vendor can be the yay or nay to getting a quick shipment to help you stay in stock.

One way to build this relationship is ensuring good communication, insight, billing, and payment practices. An ERP, especially one that intelligently automates reorders and facilitates payments for you, can help build these strong relationships. By increasing your reliability and feedback, should you bump into an obstacle down the road, your stage is set to make the most of that good relationship with your suppliers.

Happier Customers

What does supply chain optimization have to do with happy customers? It’s simple! By ensuring you always have the products and services in stock that your customers want — and by tracking your pricing models and even facilitating shipping and receiving with an ERP — you can maintain existing customer relationships and always be prepared to respond to requests from new ones. Better supply chain management in the end means happier customers, and that means you’re poised for success.

These are just a few of the ways supply chain management can help you be more successful. While it starts with insight, your supply chain optimization journey can be managed with efficiency and cost savings with an ERP. Need help choosing the right one for your organization? Reach out to an aACE advisor with questions or join us for a webinar to see how you can put aACE to work for you.