4 Steps to Choosing an Inventory Management Solution for a Growing Business

When selecting the right inventory management system, companies often limit themselves to choosing a system that simply eliminates wall-to-wall physical inventory counting. But that is what a proper inventory management software solution is meant to do. That criteria is far too general, you need to dig deeper to see if the new system and its processes are right for your business.  

With so many inventory management systems on the market, your company has the luxury of choice. But, how do you know which system is right for your company?

Here’s a simple step-by-step guide to help growing companies choose the right technology:

Step One: Identify your Problems
Outline the top business challenges that you are hoping to overcome. It could be as simple as “I don’t know where my inventory is in my warehouse” or “I don’t know how much inventory I have on hand,” to more granular issues such as:

• Inventory forecasting
• Inventory tracking in service vehicles
• No stock rotation
• Inventory trends reporting
• Overstocking or understocking
• Picking and packing
• Quick order changes
• Manual purchase orders
• Accurately recording multiple units of measure
• Cost calculation
• Barcoding

Step 2: Determine Solution Requirements
Understanding the problems are only the first set. Next, we ask our clients to do a little research and determine what they want their solution to do. Typically, our clients have wanted:

• Inventory alerts to prevent future problems
• Advanced analytics and dashboards to forecast planned procurement of inventory
• Detailed procurement history reports
• Material Resource Planning (MRP) and warehouse management
• Cycle counting for more accurate inventory numbers
• Real-time data visibility to create realistic expectations for customers
• Sales history reporting to determine common trends

Step 3: Narrow Down Possible Solutions
After you’ve completed step 2, take your list of requirements and compare it to inventory management solutions on the market. You may find some systems have a very rigid framework, or simplified standardized features that may cover some but not all parts of the processes. Others may be too robust and expensive, leaving you paying more than what you need to. Sticking to your defined list of needed features and requirements will allow you to avoid the noise and shortlist top candidates.

Step 4: Choose the Right Partner
Once you’ve decided on the right solution for your company, find an experienced partner that is willing to work with you through your business challenges. Explain your business challenges so they can tailor your chosen solution to fit your business needs. At Vision33, we provide requirements and process consulting all the way through to implementation and support. We work with our clients every step of the way to streamline business processes and ensure that our clients are getting the most out of their investment.

Vision33 is completely focused on implementing SAP Business One. It is the trusted enterprise resource management (ERP) solution designed and appropriately priced to help growing businesses streamline their business operations. This powerful solution provides companies with a complete, 360° view of their inventory. It is a flexible solution that will scale as your company grows, including multi-warehouse support features that can even assist your organization with global expansion.

Take a look at this Inventory Success Story to see how SAP Business One helped David Leadbetter Golf overcome challenges with cycle counting and help build a global brand with SAP Business One.

For a complimentary inventory management consultation, please contact us at contact@vision33.com.

Looking to see how your current inventory management system stacks up against your competitors? Download our Inventory Management Assessment to see how well your current systems are performing. 

In this assessment, you’ll take a short quiz to determine your inventory management score. Once you’ve determined your score, you can see how your current system is performing and how you can improve your current processes.