And reduce stress while you’re at it

Want a faster, more agile, more competitive importing and wholesale distribution business? With improved warehouse efficiency – and less stress for you? Then you need good business intelligence. 

Did you know that small business software such as a cloud ERP system can give you reliable business data that will take the stress out of running your business?

Here’s five ways you can use business intelligence to help you reduce costs, increase efficiency and grow your business:

1. First, automate your processes with small business software

Good, reliable business intelligence relies on good data. And good data requires clean, effective processes.

When you automate your processes, you create the foundation for the kind of operational insight that’s needed to easily report on important business and customer data.

You save significant time on data entry. More importantly, you eliminate the need to manually consolidate the latest statistics on sales margins, cash flow, stock positions, backorders, outstanding items and revenue numbers. With this business data, you’ll be agile and ahead of the game in no time.

For example, when you automate your processes, invoices can be sent electronically via email as soon as products are shipped, so you get paid faster. Stock can be automatically reordered from suppliers once quantities drop below the minimum preferred stock levels that have been set up. This helps you optimize both supply and demand.

And the best part? Once you’re up and running with automation in full swing, you can see all your critical business data and see an up-to-the-minute, bird’s eye view into your business.

This kind of business intelligence not only helps you make better business decisions, but helps you meet customer expectations faster.

2. Bust the bottlenecks with data insights that put you closer to the customer

Bottlenecks in making on-time deliveries can affect even the most seasoned wholesale distributors, and can bring everything to a grinding halt.

Use business data insights to manage expectations by keeping customers up-to-date from the minute they place the order to the minute they receive it.

Did you know studies show that “explained waits” are tolerated much better by customers than “unexplained waits”?

By providing this value adding approach, you and your brand remain transparent, visible to, and continuously connected with, the customer.

You can even build anticipation while keeping the customer informed through tracking. This promotes customer loyalty and will prove advantageous when deliveries are on time, as well as when unavoidable delays occur.

Small business software such as an ERP system gives you access to business data from all the stakeholders in the supply chain. This gives you visibility into every moving part contributing to your customer’s order, and simplifies your wholesale order management.

Then, it’s really important to keep that business intelligence available to all parties in the process, ideally in real-time, to improve communication and keep everyone in the loop – customers and internal resources alike.

3. Win sales with business data at your fingertips by taking the warehouse with you

Importing and wholesale distribution forms part of a complex network that stretches far beyond the four walls of a warehouse. It’s a sprawling world of interdependent partnerships, collaboration, and outsourcing.

The ability to answer questions about item prices, stock positions and delivery dates during a face-to-face meeting can make all the difference between winning a new account and losing an opportunity.

If you can “take the warehouse” to every meeting, you can provide a responsive, informed service that keeps existing customers loyal and wins new business.

With a good ERP system, you can do this from anywhere and from almost any device; at the office, your kitchen table, before you board a flight, or on your way to or from a meeting. This makes it easy to keep track of stock, know your stock position and get orders out the door – without stepping foot back into the warehouse.

4. Take your relationship with your accountant to the next level

You can get more value from your accountant by giving them secure online access to your business data in your cloud ERP system. With access to your business intelligence, they can give you informed and timely strategic advice throughout the entire year, not just at scheduled intervals or upon closing the books at year end.

Imagine if your proactive accountant had insights into your operations that allowed them to highlight ways to improve profit, address cash flow issues and identify growth strategies in real-time.

Also think about the amount of admin work this cuts down for your business, no longer having to worry about exporting your business data and storing securely until it’s time to meet up with your accountant. And what if any of your data has changed? Time to start re-running and exporting again unless your accountant can securely access an online accounting system in real-time, whenever they need to.

Summary: it’s impossible to stay competitive without business intelligence

It can be a real challenge to run a wholesale distribution business – you’re competing in increasingly crowded markets, with demanding customer expectations, a tighter delivery times, with a challenged Australian exchange rate and squeezed margins.

To survive and thrive, you need a unified system which offers cross-department visibility and automation. But more importantly, you need a system which helps you streamline your wholesale order management and supports your business to sell more product faster.

For more ideas on increasing warehouse efficiency, read our blog on how to improve warehouse efficiency and reduce costs.

And if you’re looking to put these business intelligence ideas into action and want to know more, you can get in touch with us at empowerme@jcurve.com.au.