Streamlining the supply chain, simplifying IT, and optimising the warehouse from order management to fulfilment is key if a busy growing small to midsized enterprises (SMEs) is to run an efficient (and profitable) warehouse in 2018. Here are five challenges that your company can overcome with the SAP Business One WMS Solution today.
1. Casting a Wider Net Through Order Management
In 2018, your customers expect to be able to conduct business with you in the channel they prefer. While you can take orders by phone, fax, and email, these methods require manual data entry and increase the chances of errors in orders. What’s more, any added constraint in doing business with your company may give a customer in your supply chain reason to look to the competition for more convenient and modern methods of doing business. How easily your current business management solution will integrate with web portal solutions to extend reach can impact a business' ability to win new business.
Aside from the method of customer order entry, order management, the type of warehouse that you operate requires a solution with the flexibility to adapt to your style. A solution like SAP Business One WMS is built upon mature, extensible SAP software giving businesses the ability to seamlessly integrated web based-portals with the solution.
2. Inventory and Traceability
Highly regulated industries whether it is food and beverage, life sciences, or pharmaceuticals, need to be able to track their products throughout the supply chain providing traceability and a full audit trail to comply with government and industry guidelines. SAP Business One WMS Solution optimises inbound and outbound logistics and enables business to meet regulatory requirements for traceability all the while delivering cost savings to the business.
Your warehouse manager may want to control inventory when more inventory arrives in the warehouse to prioritise it upon multiple criteria. For example, they may want to chose allocation based on a sales order grid. With older WMS systems, they might be able to carry out some basic functionality, but in SAP Business One for WMS solution, users have access to a robust WMS system that connects with SAP Business One's centralised inventory database.
This provides accurate information about inbound and outbound shipments, inventory, and item location. You can value inventory using standard costing, moving average, FIFO, and other methods; monitor stock levels; and track transfers - all in real-time.
3. Complying with New Industry Standards
In an industry built around getting the right product out the door as efficiently as possible, its no wonder that compliance standards continue to change and evolve? Can your business keep pace with the latest industry legislation? If you can’t keep up with other business, you might lose out business to others in the supply chain able to guarantee compliance and instill trust.
You’re likely already familiar with GS1, a global standardisation body in the supply and demand chain – maybe your current solution supports it, or maybe it doesn’t. But let’s say you’re in the food and beverage or medical device industry, does your business have support for things like Product Traceability Initiative (PTI)? Even if your current WMS solution provides support for current industry standards, what about tomorrow?
As more standard get put into place in your industry how quickly you can respond can form the basis of a competitive advantage. Businesses need a solution with a product road map that keeps pace with new standards in your industry. If the wealth of new features seen in the recent release of SAP Business One version 9.3 is any indication, SMEs considering SAP for their next WMS solution have a solution for the long-term.
4. Equipping Your Warehouse Workers with the Right Tools
No more paper pick lists already. Mobilising your workforce inside the warehouse is a no-brainer, and this is another area where SAP Business One for Warehouse Management (WMS) delivers. The benefits of equipping your employees with handheld devices that connect to your 
inventory speak for themselves – a well equipped workforce is empowered to get answers to questions right away.
Reduce manual data entry errors entering your inventory database and have employees spend more time getting the job done rather than scratching their heads and checking in with the warehouse manager. SAP Business One WMS solution offers a seamless user experience that connects your employees to your enterprise.
5. Successfully Grow and Manage Your Warehouse…Along with the Rest of Your Business
Unlike WMS solutions, whose focus is on the warehouse management, a more robust ERP solution like SAP Business One for Warehouse Management (WMS) give you an affordable way to manage your entire business. At the same time, SAP Business One provides SMEs with scalability. Out of the box, you may not need modules like project management, or much depth of features in CRM. But as you grow, these features are there and ready to accommodate your business process expansion.
The benefit being that the software grows with your company rather than having to move to another platform or buying additional software down the road to support key business processes that you need tomorrow. From accounting and financials, purchasing, inventory, sales and customer relationships, and project management, to operations and human resources. Besides WMS, SAP Business One helps you to streamline processes, gain a greater insight into your business, so that you can act fast and make decisions based on real-time information – all to help you drive profit and business expansion.
What Else Do You Want to Know About SAP Business One for WMS?
SAP Business One for WMS is an excellent choice for your next WMS solution. Are you interested in learning more about what your business could look like if you upgrade, or if you were to switch to a new ERP solution like SAP Business One? Vision33, the largest global provider for SAP Business One (and a growing SME itself), has a short product demo overview video that might help you in researching your ERP options.
Take a look and let us know if you have any questions more questions about the solution; Vision33 certified consultants are always happy to help.
