Maximize Productivity by Leveraging Order Management Systems

Running a successful promotional products distribution operation requires optimizing your productivity across all facets of the business. Yet many owners still rely on a patchwork of spreadsheets, separate databases, pen and paper processes, and manual effort that constrain order processing capacities, limit growth, and leave needless profits on the table each year.

Implementing an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system with robust order management capabilities, like Syncore, stimulates speed, scale, and bottom-line growth simultaneously. Syncore’s integrated order management functionality revolutionizes workflows, expands capacity through automation, and amplifies profit margins year-over-year. Read on to learn how powerful order management systems can transform your business operations and pay dividends in the long term.

Related: Read our ERP software guide

Common Productivity Approaches and Why They Fall Short

Promotional products distributors commonly attempt productivity advancements through various methods including:

• Hiring more administrative personnel: Labor costs offset gains and turnover leads to output losses
• Upgrading stand-alone financial or CRM modules: Data gaps persist across islands of tech
• Implementing project collaboration tools: Order details slip through the cracks

Although these changes can move the needle, they fall short of delivering the synchronized and compounded productivity made possible through order management system implementation.

What Is an Order Management System?

An order management system is a centralized software solution that facilitates, standardizes, automates, and analyzes the order processing lifecycle from inception through delivery and service. Sitting at the operational nucleus of any distribution business, a high-performance OMS enhances the velocity, quality, and insights surrounding order management to enable faster growth.

Core OMS Capabilities and Modules

Advanced OMS platforms incorporate an array of integrated modules spanning:

• Omnichannel Order Capture: Integrate orders from any channel — website, retail, field sales, e-commerce marketplaces, EDI partners, and manual entry
• Inventory Availability Engine: Monitor inventory levels, product availability, and lead times across supplier warehouses and production schedules
• Order Orchestration: Sequence order releases in optimal waves using constraints-based workflow algorithms
• Routing and Execution: Determine the best fulfillment path leveraging proximity-based supplier pairing and shipping method cost analytics. Then, enact picking, packing, and shipping activities while managing any exceptions
• Promise Visibility: Deliver complete order tracking visibility and progress updates at each step — from production, proofing, and decoration to shipping and delivery.
• Analytics: Gain actionable insights with templated reports spanning KPI dashboards, operational metrics, role-based productivity views, and guided root cause analysis.

Leading ERP platforms like Syncore incorporate robust order management modules alongside built-in accounting and marketing tools, providing a complete business management suite tailored for promotional product distributors. These order management capabilities allow for efficient order processing, tracking, and analysis. By unifying data into Syncore’s all-in-one CRM, accounting, and other systems, businesses can achieve a true 360-degree view of customer, product, and order data to inform decisions and operations.

Related: Learn about ERP supplier integration

Types of Order Management Systems

While early-generation manual paper or spreadsheet-based systems persist in many distributorships today, modern options are split across three primary categories:

• Standalone/On-Premise OMS: Self-hosted, installed on company servers. High ownership cost but maximum control.
• Integrated ERP OMS Module: Part of consolidated operational ERP system. Enables unified data and enhanced extensibility through native access to supplemental modules.
• Cloud/SaaS OMS: Web-based delivery. Lower costs and simple maintenance, as the vendor handles upgrades and patching.

SaaS experts like Facilisgroup offer swift onboarding for rapid ROI realization. Cloud-based Syncore allows ongoing options to further customize and enhance the user experience through proprietary configurations and custom code integrations over time.

How OMS Solutions Enhance Productivity

Implementing a modern order management system serves up far-reaching benefits spanning heightened velocity, upgraded quality, and enriched analytics.

Streamlining Business Operations

With built-in OMS, Syncore delivers breakthrough efficiency gains by introducing workflow automation, systematization, and analytics across every facet of the order management process. Configurable workflow templates encode industry best practices to standardize order processing strategies, minimizing manual oversight requirements. These intelligent workflows manage repetitive tasks like validating orders, determining optimal product sourcing, creating status visibility milestones, and managing exceptions.

Together, these capabilities lift perfect order fill rates while accelerating cycle times by several days. Syncore’s order data, CRM, and accounting systems compound efficiencies further by feeding valuable downstream analytics. Consolidated reporting provides insights into lead conversion, sales rep performance, cash flow cycle velocity, working capital requirements, and more.

Seamless Order Processing and Tracking

The end-to-end tracking offered by OMS solutions gives all stakeholders browser-based order status visibility whenever they need it. Accurate pre-purchase promise dates properly set client delivery expectations, while post-order visibility dashboards allow inquiries to track details of anomalies like delayed shipments or other exceptions for rapid resolution. Waypoint progression monitoring and movement alerts supply assurance throughout sourcing, proofing, decoration, shipping, and delivery, paving the path for supply chain precision improvements over time.

Efficient Inventory Management

OMS solutions optimize inventory planning, positioning, and substitutions to balance customer service levels with lean inventory expenses. Availability calculations assess allocated on-hand stock, arriving replenishments, and longer-term demand forecasts. Strategic placement minimizes transfer fees by localizing sourcing, and automated substitutions preserve margins when preferential supplier shortages occur. This multi-faceted approach ensures consistently high order fill rates without overstocking.

Related: Read our guide on ERP produce catalog management

Enhancing Customer Service Through Improved Order Accuracy

OMS solutions boost order accuracy through configurable validations checking data consistency, guided processes incorporating industry best practices, and access controls securing privileged information. Batch wave order grouping also minimizes split shipments, which can frustrate customers. This lifts perfect order delivery rates without expanding service teams, leading to better customer experiences and satisfaction.

Increasing Sales Success with Order Management Systems

Specialized order management systems like those built into Syncore create sales catalysts spanning:

Data-Driven Decisions via Embedded Analytics

Order management systems utilize self-service reporting templates to analyze crucial business dimensions. Granular sales data reveals the best-selling products last quarter, while monthly customer cohort views spotlight expanding wallet share among key accounts. Geographic performance heatmaps guide regional resource allocation and training priorities.

Product-level contribution margin analysis then focuses on promotional planning and sales incentive fine-tuning to amplify profitability. Analyzing historical customer buying patterns identifies potential new upsell opportunities for similar prospects in under-penetrated product categories.

Syncore analytics translate scattered data points into unified insights illuminating targeted business acceleration opportunities.

Upselling and Cross-Selling Opportunities

Syncore’s OMS capabilities combine individual purchase history analytics with up-to-the-minute inventory readiness data through product search with ESP web to help representatives present relevant and in-stock upgrade suggestions during order discussions.

Reps can efficiently make changes to proposals with new products or updates on the backend in Syncore, with changes immediately visible on the customer’s proposal page once they refresh. This allows for real-time adjustments, enabling reps to act as consultants rather than product pushers. This seamless process increases average order values by presenting customers with more options and timely updates that may encourage additional purchases. The system streamlines the rep’s workflow without adding a manual burden to the customer experience, eliminating the need for cumbersome lookups or memorization of product details.

Advanced OMS Platform Capabilities and Technology Stack

Breakthrough technological underpinnings support elevated order processing outcomes covering:

• Multi-Tenant SaaS Enablement: Swift deployments scale without the burden of version upgrades across distributed teams or divisions by riding a cloud-housed backend.
• Open API Integrations: Connectivity with prominent advertising sites and EDI partners prevents data movement delays while easing semantic harmonization.
• Predictive Modeling: Machine learning (ML) order promising methods balance targets maximizing revenue attainment against constraints mitigating backorders and overstocks.
• Event Stream Monitoring: Internet-scale message processing enables instantaneous workflow reactions as order, inventory, or supplier state changes occur, accelerating response times.
• Process Mining: Discovers inefficiencies by reverse engineering as-executed current state maps contrasted against ideal pathways illuminating optimization needs.
• AR-Assisted Workflows: Augmented screens guide users through order completion via overlaid graphics, attachments, and text-to-speech, lowering the need for software mastery while raising perfect order rates.

Trailblazing Vendors Lead Pack

Best-of-breed ERP providers like Facilisgroup infuse constant enhancements in our OMS capabilities, keeping pace with constantly accelerating technology. Our committed partnership mindset translates into purposeful innovation pathways prioritizing product differentiation augmented through personalized account insights.

If your business is hampered by aging middleware or dispersive data hindering your pursuit of operational excellence, partnering with an industry-specialized innovator like Facilisgroup can help you overcome these challenges. Our vertical expertise in promotional products and continual advancement of solutions like Syncore offers a foundation to achieve new ambitions that might not be possible with internal limitations.

Harness the Power of Syncore to Unlock Order Processing Productivity

As an end-to-end ERP purpose-built for promotional products, Syncore uniquely delivers embedded order lifecycle management that interweaves supplier dependencies and industry intricacies into seamless workflow optimization. Centralizing all business systems into Syncore’s advanced promotional products tech solutions multiplies commercial outcomes through data unity, process alignment, and access convenience:

• Syncore fortifies order lifecycle management capabilities with ERP, providing financial consolidations, inventory synthesis, and consolidated reporting.
• Commercio performs direct-to-customer e-commerce storefront building and management, furnishing new digital revenue streams.
• Amplifi delivers sales team education through online skill-sharpening courses tackling common selling obstacles.

Rather than disjointed modules from separate vendors, Syncore provides the infrastructure foundation that promotional products distributors need for scalable growth – aligning systems, processes, and people around operational excellence execution. Partnering with us fuels frictionless modernization while benefiting from industry community access and support.

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FAQs

What is an OMS?

An OMS, short for Order Management System, is a digital tool or platform that enables businesses to track sales, orders, inventory, and fulfillment processes efficiently. It integrates various aspects of the sales and order processing workflow, including order entry, inventory management, fulfillment, and after-sales service, ensuring that orders are completed accurately and customers receive their products in a timely manner. By centralizing data and automating order processing tasks, an OMS helps businesses improve operational efficiency and customer satisfaction.

What is the difference between OMS and CRM?

The primary difference between an order management system and a customer relationship management (CRM) system lies in their core functionalities and objectives. An OMS is specifically designed to track sales, orders, inventory, and fulfillment, streamlining the process from order acquisition to delivery. On the other hand, a CRM focuses on managing interactions with current and potential customers, aiming to improve business relationships, retain customers, and drive sales growth by managing contacts, sales leads, and customer service.

What is the difference between ERP and OMS?

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems extend beyond order management, offering a comprehensive suite of tools for managing a company’s entire operational processes, including supply chain, inventory, procurement, human resources, and finance. On the other hand, an OMS specifically focuses on tracking sales, orders, inventory, and fulfillment, ensuring that the orders received via different channels are efficiently fulfilled. While an ERP system (like Syncore) can include OMS functionalities as part of its broader capabilities, an OMS is dedicated solely to the intricacies of order processing and management.

What are the 4 stages of order management?

The four stages of order management include order placement, order processing, order fulfillment, and order completion. Initially, customers place orders through various channels, which are then processed by verifying payment and product availability. Subsequently, order fulfillment involves picking, packing, and shipping the products to the customer. The final stage, order completion, occurs when the customer receives the products, and any necessary post-purchase support is provided, ensuring customer satisfaction and closing the order cycle.