The sale of products and goods to commercial, institutional, or other professional business users, retailers, or other wholesalers is known as Wholesale Distribution (WD).
It simply refers to the sale of commodities to anyone other than a typical consumer, in general.
That being said, in a previous piece, we wrote about the difficulty wholesalers are facing in regard to the competition from Direct-to-Consumer (D2C).
One of the main points we discussed was opening sales up to consumers, as well as every other sales channel, to maximize revenue streams.
The difficulty of doing so, however, is inherently the process.
How can a Wholesale Distribution company effectively manage this massive upheaval in business practices?
The solution is Digital Transformation.
But what are some of the solutions available to wholesalers in the software space? What platforms are essential to your business, and what are some valuable extras that will take your business practices to the next level?
Continue reading to find out.
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Wholesale Distribution Software Solutions:
With so many different solutions marketed towards so many different industries, it’s hard to filter out the few that are beneficial to your business.
Here is a comprehensive list of the top Software Solutions for your WD business:
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Software
This might come as no surprise, but as companies grow their main pain point inevitably becomes proper financial management.
And that doesn’t mean management of payments or even just orders for that matter, but anything that can impact your general ledger.
Do you have multiple revenue channels or multiple inventory locations? Do you have offices in different countries that deal with different currencies?
We’ve previously written about the benefits of Digital Transformation (DT) for any WD business experiencing vertical growth. At the heart of any DT journey is an Enterprise Resource Planning tool.
There are many to choose from, but we recommend Oracle NetSuite ERP for wholesalers in the distribution industry.
With thousands of successful implementations, NetSuite has a deep understanding of the distribution sector and the challenges you face in your industry. They also offer vertical-specific, out-of-the-box functionality specifically for WD so you can get your cloud operations up and running quickly and efficiently.
If you’re interested in learning more about how to implement NetSuite or any other ERP solution for that matter, take a look at what goes into a successful implementation plan here.
Demand Planning & Supply Management Solution
Supply and demand is the most crucial topic for a business owner working with inventory to understand. Building customer trust in your business requires being able to deliver goods to them effectively and efficiently. Regardless of the point, a corporation is in with regard to expansion or growth, dependability is essential for the buyer's journey.
But what resources are available to businesses faced with significant stock swings, delayed inventory, or unpredictable buying patterns?
Whether you’re looking into NetSuite, or you’re already a NetSuite user, an all-encompassing ERP is a perfect solution for any supply and demand need.
We’ve already written about top Demand Planning tips, but did you know that GURUS offers a unique Demand Planning & Supply Management solution for the NetSuite user?
Here are a few benefits you can expect from our solution:
- Optimize inventory levels for different supply chain periods
- Reduce costs with order consolidation
- Quickly update maximum /minimum stocks, safety stock, lead time, and projections to adjust your fulfillment expectations
- Get full visibility into your day-to-day operations (including item availability) and deliver accurate forecasting to your clients
- Simplify your ordering process and easily manage workflow approvals with NetSuite’s remote role-based functionality
Business Intelligence For Better Data Visualization
Big data has exploded as a significant source of information for making decisions during the 2010s and has continued to grow since then. It has benefited numerous firms across numerous industries, and wholesale distribution organizations are no exception.
Data includes everything from a customer's frequency of product orders to their preferred product categories and variations in habit. Wholesalers can be provided with a thorough insight into business operations and success with these types of data.
Drilling down into this data can be used to forecast sales, predict demand, or even help the company reassess some of its key business procedures.
Due to the increased expense of deploying a solution, for the longest time, mid-market enterprises were unable to access this type of information. However, as more and more solutions are provided by organizations like Google, Amazon, and even NetSuite, more businesses are able to utilize their data without having to invest a sizable amount of money.
There's a good likelihood that a lot of that data is already accessible if you utilize ERP software like NetSuite. Similarly, you probably have free business intelligence tools available if you run a digital storefront on a B2B marketplace. You can export data from NetSuite into Google Sheets or Excel if you use a comprehensive BI solution.
If you’re interested in learning more about Business Intelligence solutions click here to take a look at Business Intelligence for NetSuite, Powered by GURUS.