Without inventory management, businesses, economies, and societies would descend into chaos. Inventory management is one of the most crucial elements in developing strong and resilient supply-chains that aren’t affected by the volatile marketplace. Implementing specialized software has become an industry standard to better facilitate the processes and practices involved in inventory management.
Tools, however, are only as effective as the people (or organizations) using them. Both seasoned procurement professionals with extensive inventory management software experience, and newbies learning or implementing a new system for the first time, can benefit from ProcurePort’s 5 tips for using inventory management software.
How Inventory Management Fits into the Procurement Puzzle
Procurement teams often make use of a multitude of different softwares. While procurement is the overarching umbrella, inventory management is one aspect involved. Other aspects include spend-management, product sourcing, and vendor management.
You may be asking yourself, “So what’s the difference between inventory management software, and more comprehensive procurement softwares?”
Procurement softwares are aimed at managing and facilitating ‘upstream’ processes, with some attention to ‘downstream’ processes. Inventory management software, however, focuses primarily on ‘downstream’ processes. The slight overlap in the softwares is actually beneficial to the users as it smooths the transition from one software to the other.
5 Tips for Using Inventory Management Software
A main goal of inventory management is to take control of your inventory. Using inventory management software, companies can improve efficiency related to their supply movements, track valuable data more accurately, and see increased savings related to the storage and purchasing of goods.
To better equip companies to achieve these benchmarks, ProcurePort has identified 5 tips to make the most out of your inventory management software.
- Trained Staff: As is mentioned above, tools are only as effective as the people using them. Upon implementation of a new inventory management software, it’s important to provide employees expected to use the software with the appropriate training. In addition to the training period, there should be an additional grace-period for employees to continue learning the software.
Once the staff is trained, operations will start to become more efficient. Plus, with so many professionals now identifying as digital natives, the training period won’t need to be extensive. - Defined Process: Defining the inventory processes is going to be crucial in making the most out of an inventory management software. Regardless of whether an organization uses first-in, first-out (FIFO) or last-in, first-out (LIFO) practices, the software needs to know how to track the inventory.
- Tracking Data: There are countless data points that could be tracked when it comes to inventory. With inventory management software, however, as much data is loaded, will be tracked. The company has complete control over how much data is tracked, and when it comes to data-tracking, there’s no such thing as ‘too much.’
From price-points, to supply life cycles and even average move time, inventory management software takes data-tracking to a whole new level. - Analyzing Data: Tracking data simply isn’t enough, however. Companies need to act on this data that they track. To do so, they first need to understand what the data is telling them.
This means companies need to take the time to analyze and read the data that the inventory management software tracks. Using this data can empower bold and informed choices that lead to increased profits and year-after-year savings. - Stay Informed/Be Flexible: Staying updated, adaptable, and ready-to-pivot is a necessary mindset to have relating to any software or technology. As supply-chains are so important to stabilizing the economy, the only way to keep your procurement team competitive is to stay up to date. Follow ProcurePort, and stay up to date on all the most relevant information on inventory management software.
Final Thoughts
Inventory management is just a single cog in the larger procurement machine. However, it’s a crucial aspect to the rest of the procurement life cycle. Understanding the technology, and it’s capability is vital to making the most out of your inventory management software, and developing operational efficiency, vendor, and customer trust, and both higher profits, and higher savings.
ProcurePort is the premier information-center for everything procurement and inventory management related. For more information on procurement best practices, or to explore some of the best procurement software on the market, visit ProcurePort today.
