For a growing business, it's natural to want to stick with what works, whether it's generating sales leads or getting products out the door. However, with growth comes its challenges. The systems that worked for shipping a few products per day, won't work for a few hundred products per day. While hard work is what got you here, you may soon hit a tipping point, where that ethic simply can't keep up with the pace of business.
For online retailers, that point may come sooner than expected. But rather than simply buckle down and push your staff, and yourself, to the limit, consider how you might more intelligently utilize your resources.
Adopting a best-of-breed warehouse management system to replace paper forms and clumsy spreadsheets is a perfect example of why working smarter beats working harder every time. With the help of a cloud WMS, you can have full visibility into picking, packing and fulfillment, as well as where to improve and how to accelerate growth.
When it comes to improving your warehouse operations, are you looking to work smarter or just harder?
How to maximize warehouse efficiency
Higher consumer demands, technological advances and the need to maintain profits are forcing warehouses big and small to do more with less. A survey of warehouse IT professionals from Zebra Technologies found that 76 percent of logistics decision-makers expect to see their volume of items shipped out of the warehouse increase in the coming years. As a result, nearly the same percentage of professionals surveyed (75 percent) plan to invest in warehouse management software by 2020 in order to meet this growing pressure on the warehouse.
But how exactly can a cloud WMS increase productivity without also putting the business in debt? In many cases, the software-as-a-service model presents the perfect combination of a best of breed, agile software with minimal upfront and back-end expense needed.
- Implementing a best-of-breed cloud WMS is a matter of subscribing. Software updates and tech support come standard.
- Using it is a breeze when floor staff are equipped with industry-standard barcode scanners.
- Businesses pay only for what they need, and nothing more, until they see the growth they expect.
The case for the cloud WMS is clear to many businesses. Zebra Technologies expects that by 2020, almost 90 percent of warehouse operations will switch from paper or spreadsheet inventory management to mobile devices enabled with a WMS. This shift will come with the expectation that these systems increase inventory accuracy, reduce stock shortages and errors, and ultimately improve warehouse efficiency and productivity.
Businesses need every advantage they can get in a competitive market and this extends all the way to the warehouse. Snapfulfil's cloud WMS can put distribution and fulfillment operations on a path for growth, without wasting time or money.
