Reports of the death of U.S. manufacturing have been greatly exaggerated. Not only is manufacturing alive and well in America, it has been growing for the past 32 months, and it shows no signs of slowing. Read about the good news for yourself in this fun infographic:
Learn more about Fishbowl’s Manufacturing Software.
Just because you’re running a small business doesn’t mean you can’t have big dreams. Here are 10 exciting ways you can make those lofty goals come true:
1. Build an Online Presence. There are many things you could be (and hopefully already are) doing to build your brand online: creating a user-friendly website, tracking and improving your click-through rates, engaging customers on social media sites, adding a shopping cart to your Facebook page, and much more.
2. Use Invoices and Point of Sale. One problem with sending invoices to customers is that it takes time to receive payment from them. However, if you give customers the option to pay you immediately through a point of sale system, you can get money flowing into your system immediately, not just down the line.
3. Implement Inventory Management Software. If you’re going to sell products both online and in physical locations, you’ll need to keep a close eye on your inventory levels. You can do that and increase your overall efficiency with inventory management software.
4. Build to Order. Try introducing more flexibility and customization into your product line. Let your customers decide exactly what they want in your product, and then build a product that matches their needs. Of course, you’ll need an extremely fast manufacturing line to make this work, and you’ll want to limit the things your customers can customize to a reasonable number.
5. Work with Multiple Vendors. Don’t rely on just one supplier for essential parts and products. Cultivate relationships with multiple vendors, so if you ever run into problems with one you always have another option to fall back on.
6. Stay with QuickBooks. This might seem counterintuitive, but as your business grows you should seriously consider sticking with QuickBooks as your accounting solution. You can do this by picking inventory software that integrates with QuickBooks, filling the gaps in its feature set.
7. Plan Ahead. It might seem obvious that you should plan ahead, but you might be surprised by how many businesses struggle just to keep up with daily challenges and put off planning far into the future. You need to automate business processes through software like inventory management software so you can give yourself time to start thinking strategically.
8. Move Up to Enterprise Resource Planning. Are you outgrowing your old inventory management and accounting solutions? Maybe it’s time to move up to an ERP. In the past, small and midsize businesses have been unable to afford these advanced solutions, but new, affordable ERPs have come to the market recently.
9. Outsource Server Hosting. Instead of worrying about always keeping up with the latest server technology and security protocols, you may want to outsource server hosting for your company. This could save money that you would otherwise have spent on IT personnel and expensive upgrades year after year.
10. Go Mobile. I mean this in more than one way. There are many mobile apps you can start using to run your business more efficiently. For example, you can find customer relationship management (CRM) solutions to keep track of leads and customers. In addition, you can use barcode scanners and other mobile devices to quickly receive products into your warehouse instead of being stuck at a computer terminal or having to write information by hand.
This is the 100th post on the Inventory System Software Blog! Hooray! Looking back at my first few posts on this blog, you can definitely see an improvement in the quality of my work from then to now. I’ve got plenty more important insights to give, so let’s not waste any time getting this show on the road.
Today I’ll share four ways you can take control of your supply chain management:
1. Monitor vendors’ performance. Stay up to date on which of your vendors are always delivering shipments on time and with perfect accuracy, and which ones are offering less-dependable results. If you keep track of this information, you might be able to see trends in their performance and start to make changes in your ordering habits.
2. Hold vendors accountable. If you notice a vendor starting to ship the wrong products, get behind schedule or make other mistakes, you can bring the problem to their attention and hopefully resolve it quickly. If a vendor is overwhelmed at certain times or has an outdated order management system, you would be wise to find alternative vendors to get supplies from.
3. Track shipments. To ensure your products are shipped and received at the right times, you should track them using lot numbers, tag numbers or a variety of other criteria. As your operations get more complex and you find yourself working with multiple warehouses, products and vendors, you’ll be glad you can stay on top of it all when you use inventory tracking software.
4. Optimize order management. Inventory tracking software can also help you make sure you’re only ordering the right amount of products to avoid both overstocks and stockouts. Even if a vendor offers you a discount for ordering a large number of products at a time, you still might be better off ordering smaller quantities. With larger-than-necessary orders, you run the risk of those excess products becoming obsolete or spoiling before they can be sold.
As long as you’re always keeping an eye on your vendors, seeking alternative supply options, tracking your shipments, and optimizing your order management system, you’ll remain in complete control of your supply chain management. Keep coming back to the Inventory System Software Blog because our first 100 posts are just the beginning.
Ask yourself, “Says who?”
That’s the first thing you should do when you get advice from someone. This is an important question to ask because it will save you a lot of heartache and trouble. Let’s delve into several aspects of what this question means, such as: is this person qualified to tell you what to do, and what is their motive? I’ll share some insights that will help you not only in maintaining strong relationships but also in running a business.
Accepting Advice
Throughout my life, I’ve become a better person by being willing to take others’ advice when it’s given sincerely. I tend to hope that others will follow the Golden Rule and do unto others as they would have others do to them. With that in mind, I appreciate when people express concerns with me because I know it’s not easy to talk about flaws, whether they are theirs or mine.
It’s often painful to admit that you’re wrong or that you need to improve. But it’s absolutely essential to do so from time to time because how else can you grow unless you replace weaknesses with strengths? I often thank people for their comments on my blog posts, especially if those comments are unduly negative. Even if I think a commenter is being unfair, I can often see some truth in their words, and I try to do a better job in the future.
For example, when I first started the Inventory System Software Blog I was still learning the lingo of inventory management software. Sometimes I drew analogies to things I was already familiar with, like movies. One of my silliest analogies is found in my blog post “What If Darth Vader Had Used Inventory Management Software?” After reading that post, a businessman told me I was a “cheesy” blogger. I have since tamed my blog posts so they’re more focused and relevant to the business world. And that businessman and I are still on friendly terms because I took his input to heart, and he actually did have fun reading my posts.
Good Intentions
Is the person who is giving you advice doing it in private or in public? I’ve found that it’s best to give advice in private rather than in front of an audience to avoid embarrassment. If someone tells you, in front of other people, that you need to fix something about yourself, it could mean that they just don’t know how embarrassing that can be or it could mean that they think it’s urgent that you hear what they have to say. I hope a person wouldn’t do that just to be spiteful, but even if that’s the case you can still maintain your dignity, respond kindly, and recommend you find a quiet place to talk.
Standing Firm
It’s often necessary to stand firm against opposition. There are times when I just know I’m in the right, and the person questioning me doesn’t see the whole picture, yet. It’s up to me to either explain myself to them to calm their concerns or simply push forward when it’s too difficult to explain.
Even if the person giving advice has good intentions, they might not know exactly what they’re talking about. Try to wisely judge whether or not someone is qualified to steer you in the right direction. It’s not always easy because emotions can get in the way, but if you can rise above your feelings and see the situation objectively, you can usually make the right call.
One of the men I hold in the highest esteem is George Washington. Part of what made him such a great leader was his willingness to listen to the opinions of all his subordinates, no matter how outlandish or contrary to his own preferences their ideas were. This made everyone around him feel like their views mattered. But in the end, Washington made the final call.
Stalwart vs. Stubborn
What does this have to do with running a business? When you make decisions that will have a big effect on your business, you need to be prepared to show why you’re right and why people should trust your judgment. To generate this credibility, you should use hard facts. And where do you find those facts? Inventory management software is a good place to look. It can track your sales, orders, shipments and more, and help you find patterns you otherwise wouldn’t be able to find.
You should also be willing to consider other interpretations of the data. Sometimes your staff can have brilliant ideas that you haven’t considered before. There’s no shame in changing the way you’ve always done things. It doesn’t mean you’ve always been wrong up to this point; it just means that now you have a chance to do things even better and be even more successful.
Try not to burn bridges. Keep lines of communication open by being humble and listening to other people’s opinions. You don’t have to accept everything you hear. In fact, you should be very selective about what you put into action. But always leave the door open to change. Try to notice when you’re being stalwart for what is right and when you’re stubbornly holding on to things that don’t work.
That’s my advice to you. Now what are you going to do?
Right now is a great time to be alive, isn’t it? I mean, we have so much technology that makes life easier and reduces the amount of time it takes to perform simple, mundane tasks. I think it’s good to step back every now and then and think about things we take for granted and acknowledge how good life is because of them.
One of those things I’d like to talk about right now is inventory management software. While many companies still aren’t taking advantage of it to the fullest, ones that are using it can easily forget how hard it was to manage inventory without it. So let’s go through a brief history of inventory management to see what an amazing invention inventory management software truly is.
In the Beginning
I suppose inventory management was first invented by Adam when he named all the animals or Noah when he counted the clean and unclean beasts for the Ark. But for the sake of brevity, we’ll jump ahead to modern times.
Before the Industrial Revolution, merchants basically had to write down all of the products they sold every day. Then they had to order more products based on their hand-written notes and their gut feelings. This was an incredibly inefficient and inaccurate way of doing business.
Merchants couldn’t really account for stolen goods unless they did time-consuming physical counts on a regular basis. They also had trouble making sure they got the right number of products when orders came in because of sparse recordkeeping. But it was the best they could do.
Hole-y Breakthrough, Batman!
Luckily, in 1889 a man named Herman Hollerith invented the first punch card that could be read by machines. By feeding sheets of paper that have little holes in specific places, people could record complex data for a variety of purposes from census taking to clocking in and out of work. This was basically the precursor to computers that can read data in tiny microchips. And Hollerith’s company even went on to form the world’s first computer company, IBM.
Harvard University took Hollerith’s idea in the 1930s and created a punch card system for businesses. Companies could tell which products were being ordered and also record some inventory and sales data based on punch cards customers would fill out for catalog items. Unfortunately, Harvard’s order management system cost too much and was too slow to keep up with rising business challenges.
The Best, Bar None
In the 1960s, a group of retailers (mostly grocery stores, at first) got together and came up with a new method for tracking inventory: the modern barcode. There were several competing types of barcodes before they were standardized with the Universal Product Code (UPC) in 1974. It’s still the most-used barcode in the United States today.
As computers become more efficient and cheaper, UPCs grew in popularity. In the mid-1990s, companies started experimenting with inventory management software that would record data as products were scanned in and out of warehouses. The technology evolved into a comprehensive inventory management solution by the early 2000s. And now, even small and midsize businesses can find affordable inventory management software to meet their needs.
Inventory management software has been decades (even hundreds of years) in the making. And now that it’s here, you should definitely take advantage of it to make sure your business doesn’t become history. Sign up for an online inventory software demo today.
Science is cool. Whenever I see an article or a website with the word “science” in it, I’m instantly intrigued. So when I saw an article entitled “What Are The Real Advantages Of Inventory Management Software?” on the blog Science Warp, I just had to read it.
Confession
And I have to admit, after reading that blog post I envied the author’s ability to put so much interesting content into just one post. In a blog post of my own, I talked about whether inventory management is a science or an art. I decided that, even though it requires a lot of scientific inquiries and data, inventory management is more of an art than a science because it requires so much creativity and flexibility to pull off.
The author of the Science Wrap article had his own interesting take on this discussion, so I’d like to share my thoughts on what he had to say.
Funny Aside
Just a side note: When I read someone else’s work I have a habit of finding all the flaws and wishing I could fix them. In this article, although there are plenty of grammatical oddities, I actually found them charming and funny rather than annoying. I especially enjoyed this one: “But there’s 1 distinct distinction and further use that manufacturing firm’s (sic) use this software program for.” Distinct distinction? A use that someone uses something for? [Face palm] Those are both redundant but incredibly cute and silly, darn it. There are so many slipups like that in here, but they make the post even more fun to read, strangely enough. Must. Resist. Urge. To. Praise. Bad. Grammar.
Okay, I feel better now. Let’s continue with a scientific approach to inventory management software!
Who Should Use Inventory Software
As I said before, this article covers pretty much everything you need to know about inventory software. They start with the basics, like what company types should use it: retailers, manufacturers, wholesalers, distributors and even service providers.
They then go into what makes up inventory management software: asset tracking, barcoding, order management and service management. I like how they separate these concepts. They cover pretty much everything that needs to be covered on this topic. Anything that they seem to have missed – such as accounting integration – can easily be included in one of the categories they list.
Different Focuses
Companies in the different industries will use inventory management software in a variety of ways:
It’s so nice to find someone else’s intelligent look at the benefits and uses of inventory management software. I highly recommend you go and read it. And when you’re done with that, you should get a free inventory software demo to put their theories to the test in your business.
We are rapidly approaching the 100th blog post on the Inventory System Software Blog. In honor of that and the fact that we just crossed over into a new year, I’ll examine my top 10 favorite posts that I wrote in 2011.
I average a new post every week, so I published about 50 last year. That’s a good number to choose my favorite from. I’ll count down from No. 10 to No. 1, and I’ll explain why each post made it on the list. So prepare to enjoy the cream of the crop from the Inventory System Software Blog!
10. I Heart Inventory Management Software
I really enjoy writing themed blog posts. Holidays lend themselves perfectly to this type of writing. Valentine’s Day is all about love and fluffy stuff like that, and I found a perfect way to use that to my advantage when discussing inventory management software, of all things. This made it on the bottom of this list because it’s not the most interesting or informative, but it’s just so fun.
9. Take Stock of Your Inventory Management
I’m always thinking of clever wordplays and silly ways to make inventory management more interesting. In this case, I managed to do that extremely subtly. Instead of taking stock of inventory, I encouraged readers to explore how they manage their inventory. I just love the mixture of honest questions and helpful suggestions in this post. It felt like I was sharing a conversation as I wrote it.
8. What Is Driving the Trend Toward Bigger Houses?
I don’t usually delve into controversial topics. For me, modern housing is controversial because I have some experience in the real-estate industry and I’m a little concerned about overconsumption, debt and other resulting problems. I found a way to frame the discussion in a way that hopefully challenged people’s perceptions of what they need and introduced a novel concept in warehouse management.
7. Top 10 Benefits of Great Inventory Management
Top 10 lists are always a challenge for me. Although the end result might seem effortless, it took a lot of time to put myself in a business owner’s shoes and figure out all the ways they can benefit by using inventory management software. This list, however, stands as an excellent resource for anyone on the fence about whether or not they should buy inventory software.
6. Scary Times Call for Brave Business Tactics
Halloween was coming up way too fast last year and I realized I didn’t have a Halloween-themed blog post in the works. That would have been a tragedy to pass up such a perfect opportunity to entertain my readers. So at the last minute I came up with this fun idea and ran with it. It turned out great, and it gave me a big confidence boost.
5. How to Survive a Double-Dip Recession
I’m an optimistic man. I like to think that things will turn out for the best eventually. But I’m realistic about the short term. In order to weather storms, businesses have to act prudently and cut waste without crippling their ability to bounce back. Writing this post helped me realize what an essential function inventory management software plays in helping businesses stay alive and prosper in the best and worst times.
4. Change the Way You Think About Inventory Management!
I had an epiphany while writing this post: I realized I was answering the what, when, where, why and how questions about inventory management as I went along. But I ran into a problem at the end. I thought the “who” was a bit too obvious. I’m talking to the reader the whole time, so of course I want that person to change. To solve this problem, I simply snuck the “who” in at the end. Pretty creative, huh?
3. The Difference Between George Lucas and Gene Roddenberry
I love movies. I’m fascinated by how much fervor fans have for the two big sci-fi series: Star Wars and Star Trek. I like them both, and I came up with a creative way to talk about them and then relate it back to inventory management. It wasn’t easy, but I pulled off something special with this blog post that resonated with a lot of people.
2. Is the Fastest-Growing Company Really the Best?
I was shocked when I learned that a company that was crowned the fastest-growing company in America in 2009 suddenly went out of business shortly thereafter. It was sobering to realize that growth isn’t the same as lasting success. I thought it might be a bit controversial to point out that fact, but this post surprisingly didn’t turn many heads. That’s too bad because I worry that in today’s society of instant news and overnight success stories, it’s important to emphasize the need for consistency and sustainability.
1. If That’s Impossible, How Am I Doing It Right Now?
One of my good friends and coworkers, Marilyn Bigney, inspired this blog post. She sent me the Chinese proverb: “The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it.” So many times throughout history one man or woman has had to buck all the wisdom of the ages to come up with a solution to a supposedly impossible problem. I love living in a country, and working at a company, that encourages such behavior. This post taps into that spirit and hopefully inspires readers to reach new heights.
Those are my top 10 favorite blog posts I published in 2011 on this blog. Do you have your own personal favorite? Even if it’s from another year or another blog, I’d love to hear about it. Feel free to share a comment below. Here’s to a great 2012!
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