Order management systems help eCommerce professionals oversee, streamline and expedite order processing. From the moment an order is placed to the time it leaves the warehouse, a good order management system will ensure that every step in the process is running as efficiently as possible. Here are just a few of the ways in which IBM WebSphere® Commerce’s (WSC) integrated order management system can help to streamline your supply network and ultimately boost your bottom line.
Accurate Promise Dates
The success of your business depends on your ability to deliver on your promises. And that means being able to meet or exceed your customers’ expectations when it comes to delivery promise dates. In fact, a recent survey in Retail Week found that 42% of eCommerce customers have higher expectations regarding delivery promises than just two years prior, and that number is expected to continue to go up. The conventional thinking on this among most eCommerce management professionals is that you should under-promise and over-deliver to allow yourself a sort of promise date buffer, just in case you need to reorder or shift inventory after an order has been placed.
With IBM WSC’s integrated Inventory management system, there’s no need to under-promise because you’ll be able to provide accurate promise dates every time. That’s because it combines multichannel order aggregation, global inventory visibility and service availability in one central access point, allowing your business to allocate inventory in real-time from any internal or external site in order to meet the requirements of each individual order across all channels.
Flexible Fulfillment
As barriers between channels continue to blur, your business needs an order management system that’s flexible enough to keep up. With integrated order management, customers can begin an order in-store, complete it online, make changes to their order on their mobile devices, and receive their deliveries anywhere, all without your business missing a beat. That’s because rather than processing orders via the traditional conveyer-belt-style supply process, integrated order management breaks each step in the order process down into flexible individual work units, so when something changes in the order, your business can respond and adapt in real-time without disrupting the supply chain.
Centralized Order Information
When you’re dealing with orders from multiple channels, sorting and syncing all the information from several different sources can cause costly supply chain clogs and mix-ups. Integrated order management aggregates information from online, in-store, mobile, call center, etc. and provides a single source of order status information across all order capture channels. This way every step in the process, from custom orders to returns can be monitored, modified, tracked, and/or canceled from a convenient single location, minimizing the potential for mistakes and making your entire order process, simpler, smoother and more efficient overall.
Seamless Integration for a Better Shopping Experience
Because your system will be integrated with IBM WebSphere® Commerce, it allows you to provide your customers with a smooth cross-channel buying experience by providing your sales staff, including call-center representatives, in-store associates and sales reps, with access to order, inventory and delivery tools and information. With intuitive mobile apps and access to past customer experiences and interactions, your sales associates and reps will be better equipped to build a rapport with customers and provide them with a more personal in-store shopping experience, which translates to happier customers, which in turn translates to more repeat business.
