What is an order management system (OMS)?
An order management system (OMS) is a platform that monitor and tracks sales, orders, inventory, and fulfilment. It empowers the processes, people and partnerships significant for products to find their way to the customers who purchased them.
An OMS can help you deliver that exceptional experience, improve internal performance, and streamline processes to be more efficient. Below are the three reasons why you need an order management system (OMS).
#Streamlined for Synergy
The order management system is the centre point of your operational platforms. It remains in the centre and manages processes from your various systems to guarantee intelligent fulfilment and improved customer experiences. It integrates with your ERP system, your commerce platform, product information management system, and more.
A true, enterprise-level OMS will continually monitor your different systems and channels to create seamless communication and improved workflows. An order management system is designed to minimize the margin for error and enhance efficiency.
Inventory quantities changes when orders are delayed or cancelled, or orders are eligible to be drop-shipped from nearby fulfilment centres, the order management system knows immediately.
For humans, they can only see what is directly in front of them, while your OMS is connecting and communicating data in real-time between every system to ensure no blunders are made. It combines data from carriers, suppliers, drop-ship locations, and more to ensure every player in your supply chain is interfacing effectively.
It maintains and acquires capabilities such as smart shipping, inventory management, and enhanced fulfilment practices so you can get your orders to your consumers faster and cheaper. As a result, an order management system can minimize the overall costs.
#Developed for Flexible Growth
An order management system is normally developed with a modular architecture, where the program functionalities are divided so that each module has the components necessary to carry out one piece of the overall function.
Additionally, these modules are designed and built to interface and integrate smoothly with one another to create smooth operations. OMS is developed to be scalable, additional modules can also be combined to an existing flagship solution to provide increased capabilities.
As the OMS is developed to act as an intersection for users across the supply chain; from back-end manufacturing and shipping to in-store processing and customer capabilities, the juncture used all the time during the journey changes to fit the needs of the user, as do the capabilities attached.
That is the reason these microservices are built in the cloud, so they can be agile enough to integrate and independently operate.
#Enhance Customer Experience
The design of an order management system, in addition to the capabilities it provides to internal teams, is integral to enabling an outstanding customer experience.
The need for personalized order composition from buyers isn’t diminishing, and companies have found that an order management system can greatly improve their order-to-fulfilment cycle. The most important is that you’ll have the ability to provide customers with continuous updates on their orders.
Clarity into the process of fulfilment means customers know when their order is packaged, shipped, and delivered, as well as any delays or issues that may arise.
In case the issues with orders come up, customer support software can be combined with the order management system, enabling support staff to have a complete view of the customer account, cart, and order history.
Consider a scenario, a customer is facing an issue completing his order. An order management system (OMS) allows customer service reps to share their cart and go in to manually assist them to resolve their issues. If a buyer has a query about the order and calls in, the system is even able to communicate the likely cause of the call to the support agent.
The advanced fulfilment capabilities of the system also benefit customers. Smart sourcing via system means customer orders can be shipped from the nearest fulfilment centre, minimizing shipping costs and delivery time.
Also, the system provides you with the ability to drop-ship inventory you may not stock internally, but have the ability to distribute to your customers when needed.
#Organized Warehousing
An efficient order handling is caused by the details given by an order management system and the enhanced efficiency it delivers that can combine to upgrade the productivity of your warehouse utilization. Opting for an order management system can support understanding sales and processing rates for several products, which can be utilized to adjust your stock levels. Through figuring out the minimal possible stock levels for each of the products without selling out and also not being able to process an order, you decrease the storage space each demands and the warehouse expense of storing such products.
However, there are different basic steps that could lead to the complete order fulfillment process incurrent era of warehousing. The graceful function of these steps is pivotal for delivering a successful order, enhancing customer experience and giving rise to more profit.
One of the main purposes of any warehouse is to deliver customer orders within a reasonable time frame. Each process, operation, and movement within the warehouse or the distribution center is channeled towards accomplishing that goal. An order can be received through online or offline mediums and delivering them efficiently properly is the paramount for warehouses to ensure smooth order processing and better customer experience.
A manager of the warehouse has to make use of physical ledgers, manual logbooks, or order management systems to stay consistent about the order status. Hence, being aware about the status of the order where an order is throughout the complete journey helps in streamlining the entire process and reducing errors during delivery.
These are the few capabilities an order management system can provide. To compete in the market, it’s important to continue to upgrade and improve your systems, remain agile and give them experiences that will set you apart from the competition.
