Integrating Omnichannel Retail Strategies with ERP Systems
Ensuring your customers enjoy a flawless customer experience is vital for any SME today. If you want to help your business grow, then integrating omnichannel retail strategies with ERP systems is highly recommended. Omnichannel approaches have grown massively in recent years. It has been a hugely important function within the manufacturing industry, creating a better shopping experience across your business’s channel.
It can be hard to create a business-to-customer-like approach for many businesses, especially those who sell business-to-business (B2B). Moving from a multi-channel eCommerce approach to an omnichannel strategy can provide many benefits.
What Are Omnichannel Strategies?
While an omnichannel and multichannel strategy can look similar at first glance, there are some important differences. Chief among these differences is how everything is managed on the backend. With a more traditional multichannel strategy, everything is handled on its own terms. It means, for example, that your social media marketing team will operate with different functions and aims than your email marketing team.
Over the years, customers were believed to have personal preferences in how they would interact with your business. Some would so through your website. Others would do so through social media. Others instead could be reached by using emails to grab their attention. Today, though, there is an acceptance that many customers want to be able to interact with the businesses they like through multiple channels.
That is why omnichannel retail strategies are beginning to become more and more prominent. An omnichannel process instead gives each customer a tailored, personal experience through whatever medium they use to find your business. Omnichannel retail strategies instead ensure that each of your departments is ‘singing from the same hymn sheet’.
What Are ERP Systems?
Otherwise known as Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP systems are one of the best partners for an omnichannel approach. ERP systems aim to help ensure that your business’s key functions are handled appropriately. By ensuring that every essential process that your company needs to run is dealt with in one place, ERP systems are critical for modern enterprises.
ERP systems are commonly used for everything from resource planning and allocation to inventory management, sales, and human resource control. For the most part, ERP systems are critical to the function of a modern business. By bringing all of your processes into one place, your company can make the day-to-day running of your required operations much easier.
Typically available remotely, staff with the correct credentials can access ERPs outside your workplace. These tools offer incredible versatility, giving you complete control. As noted by Investopedia, an ERP can be ineffective if it is not being implemented correctly. While ERPs provide a much easier solution for everything from data reporting and marketing management to sales funnels and inventory purchasing, ineffective implementation can lead to significant issues.
If your business intends to implement omnichannel retail strategies with ERP systems, it is important to ensure that it is set up and handled correctly.
Why Integrate Omnichannel Strategies Into ERP Systems?
ERP systems are an ideal match for any company looking to use ERP systems. Let us say, for example, that your business operates both in brick-and-mortar stores and online. If someone makes an order online, an omnichannel platform makes it easy for customers to have the product delivered or picked up in their local store. With multichannel setups, it is much easier for blurred lines to cause problems here.
With an ERP system, you can ensure that your local store is notified immediately of the collection. Staff in-store can then ensure that the order is prepared properly and that the stock management is adjusted. With multichannel strategies, you might face a problem where stock is not modified. Thus, a customer cannot collect their product, or in-store cannot receive their purchase because you have provided that stock to another customer.
When integrated with omnichannel strategies, ERPs allow for much more communication between each side of your business—having one central location where all of your departments – in-store, online, customer support, marketing, etc. – can work together as one makes it easier to keep customer satisfaction at a high level.
The ERP platform is also crucial for stock management and vital to any retail business. Let us say that an online order for collection has now depleted the last of your in-store stock for a popular item. This key information is not lost thanks to every channel managed through one ERP system. The ERP can then update the website automatically with stock information about when more stock will be available, and your in-store staff will be aware that the last of the stock in a specific item is now spoken for.
This is just a small example of how beneficial it can be to have both an omnichannel and an ERP system. These strategies centralise every aspect of day-to-day business management. It also ensures that with every department working together, communication problems that result in lost sales and trust from clients are a problem of the past.
Looking To Integrate Omnichannel Strategies Into ERP Systems?
The above process can sound daunting, but help is available to ensure you can work through this challenging process relatively unscathed. At BlueHub, we can offer you the support and assistance needed to build a bespoke business system. We can assist in marrying your ERP systems to the omnichannel strategies you wish to implement.
When carried out by experts who understand the challenges of the task, omnichannel integration is not as difficult as it might seem. Not only can this improve the customer experience greatly, but it can ensure that your staff have an easier time running and managing key aspects of your business.
Contact our team today for help with any ERP system integration and management aspect, especially when you wish to implement omnichannel strategies. We can assist in building the customised systems your business needs to be at its absolute best for your clientele and staff.
We can assist with any assistance you need in integrating omnichannel retail strategies into ERP systems. Get in touch to see how BlueHub can make this complex process easier.