Is It Time to Change the Way You Track Your Inventory?
Your inventory is the lifeblood of your business and proper management is essential to stay competitive in today’s marketplace. Even if you feel you’ve managed inventory just fine for years, there are always new better ways to go about it.
Mistakes in Excel spreadsheets are common, which opens your business up to human error. A lack of inventory management is a cause for many businesses failing. To be truly effective and efficient with inventory, you need a solution that can automate processes, provide real-time data and eliminate errors that cost you money.
Here’s how your business can benefit from a new inventory management solution:
Customer Satisfaction
Your primary concern is keeping your customers happy. Constant inventory mistakes and delays can motivate your customers to find another company that provides faster, better service. If you have frustrated customers, consider implementing a new inventory management software to help track inventory and improve product availability. In doing so, you’ll notice greater customer satisfaction and retention, all of which will lead to a growing business.
Improved Data Accuracy
Smaller companies can typically use an Excel spreadsheet without any mistakes. However, growing businesses immediately experience Excel limitations in regards to data inaccuracies and forecasting problems.
Obviously, data inaccuracies can lead to multiple issues down the road. Besides keying errors, spreadsheets themselves are out of date. When more than one employee has access to them, you end up with even greater errors. If your inventory is shuffled between locations, this causes confusion within employees when they need inventory details. An inventory management system allows multiple employees to work on the inventory which saves time and prevents errors.
Scalability and Growth
In addition to greater control of your inventory, updating to a more robust inventory management solution can contribute to the growth of your business. As your company expands with multiple warehouses, you will require inventory software that will allow you to track multiple line items across multiple warehouses. So ask yourself, do you want to continue using a solution that can’t keep up with your business?
Accurate Forecasting
Inaccurate data leads to serious problems, both in the present and future. Excess inventory write-offs are costly and often the result of not knowing what you have in stock. When you don’t know what’s in your inventory, employees will end up wasting time searching for items, while customers will walk away frustrated because you don’t have the products they need. An inventory management solution with strong reporting features will give you greater visibility so you always know when to order new inventory and track which items move the fastest.
Still not sure if you’re ready invest in a new inventory management solution? Try calculating how many sales you’ve lost due to inventory errors or lack of product availability. The missed revenue should give you enough reason to make the switch to Spire, a more advanced solution to keep customers satisfied and increase your bottom line.