Integration is Key When Planning Your Purchasing Schedule
Many manufacturers struggle with matching special orders or back orders with their production levels. When they don’t have visibility throughout their supply chain in real time, they face serious consequences: Customer satisfaction declines, cash flow is reduced, and cost of materials negatively impacts the bottom line.
A simple focus on integrating supply chain management software can turn things in a completely different direction. With insight into all operations, purchasing agents can keep materials flowing just in time to accelerate production and order fulfillment, keeping your cash flow high as well as your customers happy.
Purchasing is just one part of the supply chain but a critical component to maintaining value for your customers. Automation that tracks backorders and drop ships can improve customer experiences and minimize manual intervention which ultimately reduces tracking errors. With an automated link from backorders and special orders to customer orders, errors will become few and far between. It also makes it possible to deliver order status information to sales reps so they can set customer expectations right from the get-go.
Improving customer satisfaction is a huge benefit but definitely not the only one. With automation, purchasing agents can see opportunities to combine orders across departments and locations to maximize buying power. They can also closely monitor supplier quality, price, lead time, and promotional/contract pricing to recommend the best vendor, saving your company time and money.
Making profitable decisions for your supply chain doesn’t have to be like searching for needles in a haystack. Your information can be accessible with a fully integrated system that analyzes and optimizes data from price to delivery.
Check out our free eBook, “How Today’s Manufacturers are Taking Control of Materials, Inventory, and Manufacturing Costs from Order to Delivery”, and get a better idea of how a fully integrated approach to purchasing is the sure-fire way to go.