Many businesses in the Philippines – and their Warehouse Managers – can relate to the challenges Santa faces every year. Just like Santa, they have a high volume of deliveries that need to happen within a very short time, especially during the holiday season. They have a vast archipelago to cover, and customers who expect their deliveries to arrive on time. While Santa seems to pull off a magical feat, it’s not really magic but sound business processes and effective inventory management strategies that help them turn the impossible into possible.

Here are some of the strategies and tactics that can be on a business’s secret list for managing inventory effectively during the peak season. Read on to learn how to improve warehouse performance, reduce wastage, and increase stock turnover in the Philippine context.

Stock demand insights

Just like Santa, who receives countless letters giving him an idea of what’s popular and what’s not, businesses in the Philippines can gain insights into stock demand from their sales history. By analyzing previous sales data, they can identify fluctuations in demand for various items and when these fluctuations occur.

If your products have changed over time, categorizing them into groups and subcategories can help identify product lines with increasing or decreasing demand. Rather than focusing solely on individual items, categories provide a broader view based on item types.

By relating demand fluctuation data to marketing promotions, geographic locations of customers, seasonal influences, and other factors, businesses can gain a clearer picture of what’s driving these fluctuations. Having an ERP system that centralizes inventory management, sales, marketing, and CRM data can streamline this reporting process.

To better understand stock demand insights in the Philippine context, let’s explore strategies similar to Santa’s, as highlighted in “The Powerful Insights Uncovered by Inventory Management Reporting“.

“When you relate demand fluctuation data back to your marketing promotions, geographic areas of your customers and other factors such as seasonal influences you’ll see a clearer picture of what’s caused those fluctuations.”

Real-time visibility

When the holiday rush is at its peak, your inventory situation can change rapidly. Seeing your stock position and warehouse performance at a glance gives you the power to make agile decisions and prevent potential stock-outs from happening.

If possible, ensure your inventory management software is set up with the right KPI meters, saved searches, and indicators on a central dashboard view. Having critical information on one screen puts you in the best position to prevent issues. If you don’t have a cloud-based solution that provides up-to-the-minute data and delivers it to a consolidated dashboard, it may be something to consider for your business.

Working smarter

Just as Santa relies on his elves, you rely on your warehouse staff to keep stock moving in and out. So, how can you help your staff work smarter?

The more efficient your warehouse setup, the more stock you can turn over and the more sales orders you can fulfill. Are your most popular products located at the back of the warehouse? If so, staff could be walking the entire length of the warehouse every time they pick those high-demand items. Moving the popular products closer to where the pick, pack, ship process is completed can save a significant amount of time. Grouping similar items can also help pickers work more intuitively, knowing where to find related products that need to be picked. This can be especially helpful for additional staff hired to cover the holiday period.

To optimize warehouse operations like Santa’s elves, consider the advice in “Boosting Your Warehouse Efficiency with NetSuite Inventory Management“.

“Are your most popular products located at the back of the warehouse? Moving the high-demand products closer where the pick, pack, ship process is completed can save a whole lot of time.”

Time-saving automation

Having the right automation in place can be like having your own, personal team of elves running things behind the scenes. Find out if your inventory management system can automate stock re-ordering with minimum and maximum levels in place, trigger reminders, and send alerts.

Automating personalized order dispatch notifications can also give customers a better experience and reduce calls coming into your customer service team.

Cutting down on staff’s repetitive, manual tasks can free up a lot of time in the long run. This leaves them free to ship more stock, help more customers, and focus on more profitable activities.

Discussing automation’s role in efficiency is detailed in “Smart Reordering with NetSuite: Automation and Forecasting”.

‘Tis the season to use scanning solutions

Like Santa, who embraces technology, businesses in the Philippines can benefit from the efficiency that RFID barcode scanners bring to a warehouse. Instead of having pickers walk back to a central desktop or laptop to get their next picking slip or to receipt more orders, a wireless scanning solution delivers updated information directly to handheld barcode scanners.

Wireless scanners help warehouse staff efficiently manage purchasing and receiving, stock barcode scanning, bin put-aways, and the full pick, pack, ship process – all from a single handheld device.

“Instead of having pickers walk back to a central desktop or laptop to get their next picking slip or to receipt more orders, a wireless scanning solution delivers updated information directly to handheld barcode scanners.”

Get prepared for post-holiday activities

Setting up and automating reports to keep track of product sales keeps you one step ahead over the busy holiday period. But it’s also important for knowing what’s left over after the rush. Dashboards that give you real-time stock information can help monitor any excess product and flag when you need to adjust purchasing quickly.

By using a single-source cloud ERP system, sales and marketing can access the same information on stock levels as you see on your warehouse management dashboard. It becomes easy to identify opportunities for post-holiday campaigns and offers that can be put in place to run out excess inventory swiftly. For sales and marketing, it can be invaluable to know which products to target. For the warehouse, running out those items can reduce stock obsolescence and wastage, increasing overall warehouse profitability.

Having the right tools

The holiday season can be stressful for businesses in the Philippines, just as it is for Santa. But while Santa has an army of elves and a little magic on his side, businesses have the opportunity to leverage the right tools to increase operational efficiency and maximize warehouse performance.

Knowing your stock demand in advance, having real-time visibility of your stock position, using automation, reviewing your physical warehouse setup, and employing smart technology like barcode scanning devices can all help streamline warehouse operations and boost efficiency. Getting the right reporting to maximize the post-holiday period and run out excess stock also ensures product wastage is reduced and warehouse profitability is optimized.

If you’re missing some of the tools needed to make the most of the peak season, get in touch to find out more about a cloud-based business management software solution that could be a valuable investment for your business.