Common Conundrum – Is WMS Worth the Hype?

Introduction – So, we’re quite familiar with the overall E-commerce growth across the globe, now let’s understand Warehouse Management System at a deeper level. Here’s a brief about why inventing in WMS can be a leverage to your business.

Why is investing in a Warehouse Management System scalable for your Business?

1. Minimizes inventory shrinkage to the maximum
2. Ensures that only the correct product gets delivered to the end consumers
3. Reduces the transportation cost by consolidating the shipping of customers living nearby
4. Allows the customers to track the entire delivery process with ease

Why is investing in an integrated WMS beneficial over IMS or OMS?

Nowadays, some businesses often ask if they invest in individual Inventory Management System and Order Management Systems (OMS), then why do they need to have a fully integrated cloud-based WMS? The answer simply lies in the differentiating factor that WMS has to present. Yes, automation can be brought forward to the operations just with the individual applications but they often lack crucial functionalities, right from the capability to accept or create Advanced Shipment Notice (ASN) from a single system to the capacity to manage inbound docks.

Use numbers to map solutions to the business size and the scope of growth by adding WMS instead of a single solution. Moreover, without a well integrated WMS, managing multiple facilities seamlessly is almost impossible.

While a warehouse management system adds visibility to the warehouse operations an inventory or order management system can only give you clarity over stock operations. So what is the best approach for an e-commerce business? On one hand, an inventory management system has a comparatively simpler interface that entails the total amount of inventory housed in a warehouse at a given time, on the other hand, the warehouse management system gives information on a broader scale by classifying multiple zones of warehouses. Warehouse management is more connected to the components required in managing the overall backend workflows, right from manifest management to GRN putaway.

Even if you as a business owner decide to go for a WMS, wouldn’t it be a problem if you won’t be able to understand the criticalities/processes connected to it?

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Primary Warehouse Management Processes

Introduction – Investing in a warehouse management system can surely be a wise decision, let’s now break down the step by step process of managing a warehouse. Read on to know the key steps involved.

The processes pertaining to warehouse management are the blueprint of the overall warehouse structure. They define how an organization’s warehouse operations are aligned. Furthermore, warehouse management processes carry out:

Key Processes of a Warehouse

Blueprint of a Warehouse: WMS can add value to each step of your warehouse management process –

1.Receiving

A WMS authenticates that the warehouse has received the right product, in the right quantity, in the right quality, at the right place, and during the right time. To streamline this process further, a robust warehouse management system allows businesses to punch the key purchase order details (expiry date, delivery date, etc.) along with the vendor details, thereby simplifying purchase management and vendor management. After this stage, a GRN (Goods Receiving Note) is created to confirm if all the goods have been received. From there onwards, the dissemination of roles and responsibilities starts, from placement of inventory for storage to picking and packing at the time of shipping.

Know more about the Prerequisites of Warehouse Management

2. Putaway
Putaway is the next process that includes the movements of goods. While this process seems easy to execute, failing to implement the same can cost huge losses. For instance, a fragile item is received, but the warehouse staff fails to follow product handling procedure. Due to some mishappening, the product gets damaged. Well, to avoid such circumstances, WMS enables the businesses to create putaway while saving them from impairing operational productivity.

Know more about the Putaway Operations of Warehouse

3. Storage
Storage is an essential process as it provides inventory accuracy. But how can you achieve it? Shelf Management is the answer. If this process is executed properly, the business process can maximize the available storage area and increase productivity. Moreover, shelf management plays a crucial role at this stage; because if the shelves are not organized properly, the whole process will lose its sole purpose.

4. Picking and Packing

Picking is the warehouse process that involves the collection of products in a warehouse for order fulfillment. While this process is directly related to the previous process, streamlining this can optimize cost up to a certain amount. Not only does a business need to give more emphasis on positioning the products, but they should also need to pick items with care, so they don’t get damaged. Adjoined to this process is packing, where the picked items are prepared for shipping. One of the crucial aspects of packing is to ensure that any sort of damage is minimized during the shipping process.

5. Shipping and QC

The journey of goods reaching the final destination concludes with this process. This process is also crucial as it is directly associated with the customer. If the right products are not dispatched to the right customers, it can affect the overall customer experience. With an automated WMS software, this process also gets automated, simplifying the order routing process.

Manifest Management using WMS: Not to mention how a warehouse management system can also enable to create Manifests automatically using a single interface, detailing the number of the packages included in the shipment.

6. Reporting

Last but not least, this step is imperative to determine whether the order has been fulfilled or not. It includes analyzing inventory and order reports across the warehouse. Additionally, this step also determines the inventory and order forecasting to understand the overall warehouse inventory needs to predict stock and labor availability.

Some systems also give a sense of flexibility by introducing special fields as per the brand’s needs and preferences all while allowing them to subscribe to the reports so that it can receive them as and when required.

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Things to Consider While Investing in a Warehouse Management Technology

Introduction – This makes you quite well-versed with the entire WMS process! Coming up are the few major things to consider while investing in a fully loaded warehouse management technology.

Before investing into an e-commerce WMS, it’s important to compare and contrast available solutions in the market. Here are a few important aspects to consider before deploying a WMS.

1. Data-driven features

Sometimes businesses ignore the importance of analytics and stats just because they assume that no problems are happening at the operational level. But that’s where they go wrong. Even if the warehouse is working smoothly, it doesn’t mean that operations are being functioned at their full potential, and warehouse managers can probably use reports and dashboards to plan future strategies.

Hot tip:

A business must look for a system that has the potential to implement expiry management methods, such as FIFO & FEFO while reducing e-commerce returns by 20%.

2. Multi-warehouse management

With the increase in customer demands businesses are reinventing strategies to manage centralized operations while managing multiple warehouses simultaneously. That’s when an agile warehouse management system comes into the picture as it can also assist a business in centralizing the crucial tasks, such as maintaining healthy stock levels automatically and location-allocation across multiple warehouse sites along with real-time ecommerce inventory management, automated purchase management, routing and tracking of shipments, order management from multiple POS, etc.

Know more about Multiple Warehouse Management In E-Commerce

3. End-to-end barcode scanning

While barcoding can save all the hassles of manually tracking and monitoring the inventory, it gives quick access to the overall product along with its description, availability in the warehouse, prices, and many other aspects. Additionally, for large businesses with diverse and complex product lines, a barcode scanning system monitors inventory, tracks assets, and creates orders while enhancing operational efficiency.

Typically, a barcode system is classified into two different types: 1D and 2D. Although the scanners might seem simple, it’s important for a business to distinguish between the two hardware types as their contrasting functionalities make a lot of difference.

4. Returns Management

When the returned products re-enter the supply chain, it challenges operational efficiency. Not only does it take up warehouse space, but there’s also a risk of it depreciating more quickly than the other products. To minimize this problem, businesses need a warehouse management system with an advanced returns management feature. With returns features, businesses can get alerted about orders with high return potential and get clearer visibility of stock movement and faster inventory turnaround.

5. Third-party integrations

A warehouse management system presents an overall view of the warehouse, right from good receiving to dispatching. And to reap the benefits of its centralized nature, businesses can integrate multiple third-party applications, which can eventually streamline other processes, such as logistics, marketplace management, accounting, sales and CRM, and more. The e-commerce integration software allows businesses to connect with other business systems to simplify their business processes. From accounting to marketplace management, there are multiple integrations that a business can leverage to perform a plethora of tasks.

After studying each principle of warehouse management, it’s equally important to reflect light on its practical aspects. While you must have struggled at one point or the other, wouldn’t it be great to learn from the frequently asked questions and scenarios in which people have found themselves grappling with challenges but have found the way at last with the best support and solution?

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5 Highly Asked Questions when Transitioning from Traditional System to Automated Technology Solution!

Introduction – Keeping all the considerations in mind, step ahead with the highly important questions, while taking a transition from the traditional system to an automated WMS solution.

After going in-depth with each and every detail, we have compiled a curated list of questions and problems that businesses have faced or asked quite frequently.

1. How can brands generate optimum capacity through WMS using ERP/POS integrations?

Deploying in the warehouse merely won’t be of any use. To perform at scale and build optimum capacity for your business, you need to use WMS to its finest capacity. If you examine the critical needs and process inefficiencies of your key processes, you will realize the need for some particular third-party applications. Since every business has its own unique attributes, it is equally important to define the priorities. You first need to ask yourself: What are the priorities that you expect to glean from your company’s WMS?

Do you want to streamline warehouse workflows first or do you want to get better control over your inventory first? Or maybe you want to put more focus on enhancing customer journeys? Once you have defined your major goals and objectives, you can connect your WMS with the relevant third-party applications. For instance, for you, shipping orders on time is the priority rather than creating order invoices. With a consolidated WMS, you get a chance to integrate your system with shipping aggregators right away.

2. How to manage and maintain your WMS with fluctuations in demand?

Identifying and recognizing the influxes in demand could be a difficult task. Why? Because there are multiple types of products. While some of them experience the same demand throughout the year, others go through seasonal demand variations. And these changes not only flabbergast most businesses, but also pose a threat to warehouse inventory.

But if a business has a dedicated reports and dashboards section in the WMS, it can definitely mitigate such contingency situations and make the most out of the disruption waves. How?

The foretelling data analysis equips you to stock your warehouse with an adequate level of inventory, minimizing understocking and overstocking. It also keeps track of incoming sale orders, pending purchase orders, inventory, and returns to suggest a real-time updated Quantity to Purchase (Quantity Waiting), thereby managing Backorders. Moreover, by monitoring the sales and inventory reports closely, you can shed light on the demand drivers to minimize the peril of carrying excess inventory.

Hot tip: You can leverage reports and dashboards to reckon upon your marketing and promotional activities, specifically around peak season. You can alter your product prices by looking at the current market demand, amplifying business profit margins.

3. What are the essential aspects a business must count on when deploying a WMS?

The warehouse management system is not only responsible for synchronizing the flow of warehouse processes, but it is actually a central part of the backend that simplifies inventory and order management. While the importance of the system is incomplete without some of the key components, their application is equally important to attain harmony in a warehouse. Moreover, these components connect overall inventory and order management operations to get the best possible results.

Here are the key components of a Warehouse Management System:

1. Batch Management: By making batches of inventory, a business can minimize the bad inventory entirely. Moreover, businesses dealing with FMCG and perishable goods can also adhere to expiry management methods, such as FIFO and FEFO, which eventually enables stock rotation, based on its manufacturing and expiry dates.

Know more about Batch Management in Warehouse

2. Cycle Count: Inventory cycle count is the method of auditing the stocks regularly by checking up various aspects of the items based on the availability, date of manufacturing, date of expiry, etc. Implementing the right inventory cycle count methods not only reduces or eliminates the need for periodically or annually counting the physical inventories but also enables a business to have real-time and faster updates on its day-to-day operations.

3. Shelf Management: A facility center or a warehouse generally house a large number of shelving units. While these installations are made for achieving maximum efficiency during storage, they are incredibly credible to create space and bring order to the overall layout of the warehouse. Not to mention, it enables a business to get any type of space to store items of all sizes, shapes, or types.

4. Bundle Management: A Bundle is used to group several products together and sell them at a cheaper price. This arrangement allows a customer to buy a pack of items together at a cheaper price.

4. How can a business manage its inaccurate inventory on time?

While it pricks the entire stock management system, a little knowledge and optimization can avoid inaccurate inventory altogether. Here are a few methods a business can club with its WMS and the results will be remarkable for sure!
– Don’t entertain complexities. While you can keep your inventory measures simple, don’t forget to map them at each stage.
– Closely track the flow of stock from its origin to its final destination as it can save you from huge losses.
– Set traceability of your stock amid the whole distribution chain. Include the entire pipeline, right from inbound and outbound shipments to inventory in the various DCs.
– Establish a rigorous cycle counting program in the warehouse. While it validates the count and location of all inventory present in the warehouse, any discrepancy found while counting will be picked up and relevant actions can be taken.

5. What are the important aspects involved in the shipping process? How can a business elevate the customer journey?

Scope of WMS is not limited to the point of picking but goes beyond product delivery routing. It not only optimizes the delivery route but also optimizes on partial delivery and coordinating with shipping aggregators. While organizing the processes after the shipment is ready to begin its actual journey is crucial, there are some basics that set a foundation for the shipping process.

– Partial shipment: There are circumstances where businesses couldn’t ship all the orders related to the recipient together. Imagine this; a business deal in fragrances of all sorts, including incense sticks and fragile perfume bottles. Now a shipment consists of both of these. Not only it is hazardous to ship alcoholic perfume bottles in a simple cardboard box, but the damage can also cost that business huge losses. To streamline the process, most WMS providers offer a feature where a business can split or break order shipments. Shipments can be split by the SKU or item count or through customization as per the business.

– Shipping aggregators: Most companies face the problem of finding the right shipping provider. While sometimes a business needs to integrate local shipping companies, which are familiar with the nooks and crannies, other times they need to find the right partner depending on the nature of the product (as some shipping companies deal into specialized goods that contain fragile and hazardous goods). So, it’s important that a business has all the options together and for that, it needs to be associated with shipping aggregators. And if you invest in a centralized WMS, you get the chance to connect with multiple logistics providers.

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Investing in a Third-Party Tool vs developing an in house WMS

Introduction – Hope the questions would have paved the way for you, here’s a guide to checkout for investing in a third-party tool vs moving forward with an in-house WMS.

In the times of one-day delivery, changing dynamics of online retail, and the demand to get increased fulfillment rates, has coerced businesses to invest in an advanced solution. While developing an in-house system might seem like a lucrative option to invest in but it might not be the best option, Why? It not only takes their time & effort, but also requires an advanced level of R&D. Not to mention the absence of expertise.
With Subscription based models, SaaS solutions have made it feasible for all sizes of businesses to afford premium third party solutions.

Below are brief comparison of both approaches:

1. Third-Party Tool:

● Cost: Implementing a third-party WMS typically involves an upfront cost in the form of licensing fees, subscription charges, and implementation costs.
● Time: Adopting a third-party tool can be relatively quick, as the system is already developed and ready to use. Integration with existing systems may still take time but can be faster compared to building a WMS from scratch.
● Features and Functionality: Third-party WMS solutions often offer a wide range of features and functionality, built upon industry best practices. These tools may have advanced capabilities, such as real-time inventory tracking, order management, automation, reporting, and integration with other software.
● Support and Updates: Third-party providers usually offer technical support and regular updates, ensuring that the system remains up to date and compatible with evolving business needs.
● Expertise: Implementing a third-party tool relies on the expertise of the vendor, who is responsible for developing, maintaining, and upgrading the software. This can free up internal resources and allow the organization to focus on its core competencies.

2. In-House Warehouse Management System (WMS):

● Cost: Developing an in-house WMS requires a significant investment in terms of time, money, and resources. Costs include hiring skilled developers, project management, infrastructure, ongoing maintenance, and support.
● Customization: Building an in-house WMS provides greater control and customization options. The system can be tailored to meet specific business requirements, workflows, and processes.
● Integration: An in-house solution can be seamlessly integrated with existing systems and infrastructure, ensuring a smooth flow of data and information across different departments.
● Scalability: Developing an in-house WMS allows for scalability and flexibility. The system can be adapted and expanded as the business grows and evolves over time.
● Intellectual Property: Creating an in-house solution gives the organization ownership and control over the software’s intellectual property rights.

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How has Unicommerce delivered excellence over years?

Introduction – Coming to the final note, we would like to bring in notice how Unicommerce has been able to deliver absolute excellence over the years.

Successful Cases Where Clients Have Attained Incredible Results

Let’s talk about some of the cases where clients have used the Warehouse Management System of Unicommerce and have witnessed tremendous results.

1. Unicommerce’s New Age D2C and Omnichannel Solutions empowered Chumbak to boost sales across 58+ Retail Stores

Right from managing the warehouse operations to integrating multiple sales channels, Chumbak was determined to scale up on their order fulfillment rate. With sales across multiple channels, the major goal of the brand was to streamline its operations across multiple sales channels, while ensuring that it could maintain data sanctity in its ERP system (Microsoft AX). Collaboration with Unicommerce has empowered Chumbak’s Team to automate their in-house business operations in many ways. With full inventory visibility, the stock was more accurate, which considerably reduced the scope for manual adjustment errors, resulting in a 99.99%+ fulfillment rate.

2. How Dhani Services Ltd., a leading Healthcare Brand, has streamlined operations across 166 facilities with Unicommerce’s WMS

After onboarding Unicommerce as their e-commerce technology partner, Dhani was able to expand its operations across multiple facilities and boost its business sales dramatically. Unicommerce provided a comprehensive GRN workflow that enabled Dhani to control the quality of its products, yielding growth in orders by 20X

3. How Marico Limited achieved 100X growth in sales using Unicommerce for its D2C online business?

Marico Limited was looking out for a solution that could help them adapt D2C Selling and streamline their warehouse operations for consumers across nations from a single panel and with faster technological backing. With the streamlined handling of inventory, warehouses, fulfillment, and shipping needs by Unicommerce, Marico Limited was able to speed up operations, improve NPS & achieve higher delivery accuracy.

Conclusion

It might be clear by now that a WMS can alter the entire warehouse scenery right from the convenience of a single device. While the centralized view of order and inventory operations that a WMS provides is one of the biggest benefits, it also enables businesses to fit their requirements and needs as per the new technological transformations. A business can’t just get the growth opportunities by streamlining the order of things at the backend level but also enjoy the benefits of associating with global partners in the ecosystem.

About Unicommerce

Unicommerce eSolutions is India‘s largest e-commerce-focused supply chain SaaS technology platform. Established nine years ago, Unicommerce provides e-commerce enablement software for multichannel selling, inventory management, warehouse management, and omnichannel solutions. The solution is designed to meet the business needs of e-commerce and e-tailers across sectors and has served over 15,000 registered customers across India, the Middle East, South East Asia, and South Asia. Unicommerce solution is currently being used by 35K+ users to manage over 2000 stores and 7000+ warehouses, processing over 1 mn transactions every day, amounting to USD 5Bn GMV annually. Some of its key clientele includes Myntra, Jack & Jones, Tommy Hilfiger, Gulf Oil, Adidas, Vero Moda, Chumbak, W, House of Anita Dongre, Forever New, Marico, Netmeds, Healthkart, Mamaearth, mCaffeine, Sugar Cosmetics, Lakme, and Nivea among many others.

Unicommerce platform is also seamlessly integrated with more than 150 partners across marketplaces, logistics providers, and ERP systems. A few of the key platform partners of Unicommerce are Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, Lazada, Noon, Shopify, Magento, Delhivery, FedEx, Blue Dart, DTDC, Ginesys, Logic, Tally, among many others.

Unicommerce has received many awards, including being recognized as a ‘Notable Vendor’ in Gartner APAC Magic Quadrant for Warehouse Management System in 2021, the second consecutive year.

Moreover, it has also been recognized as a Leader in Grid Report for Inventory Control | Spring 2022 by G2 and received Innovation Technology Provider of the year – Omnichannel-2022 by Alden Global Value Advisors. It has also received ‘Awards for Excellent IT Product’ for Omnichannel Solution by IMC Chamber of Commerce & Industry, ‘Best Warehouse Management Solution Provider-2021’ at ‘Inflection’ by Alden Global, and NASSCOM Centre of Excellence, along with Top Order management software 2021 by GoodFirms.

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