To avoid both scenarios, you need to have proper control of what’s coming in and what’s going out of your stores. Moreover, you want to know what your customers want and whether you are adequately providing them with it. 

Reasons behind overstocking/understocking:

• Bad processes 
• Bad Training
• Disconnected data
• Supplier issues including pricing

How to get inventory Right

1. Forecast Sales based on Historical Data – Great inventory management comes down to accurate demand forecasting. If you can predict sales, you can prepare accordingly.
2. Listen to the market – Track search trends to assess demand for your overall product category. By monitoring buyers’ search habits, you can determine if general interest in your products is increasing or decreasing and then adjust inventory.
3. Centralize Data – Avoid working on multiple spreadsheets, this will just get confusing. By monitoring stock from a single point, you can quickly determine when you need to restock inventory to fulfill orders.
4. Apply ABC analysis. This allows you to prioritize your most important items.

A: High-value products that represent a small portion of the total inventory

B: Moderate-value products that represent a decent portion of the total inventory

C: Low-value products that represent the majority of the total inventory

5. Analyze inter-departmental communication. It is essential that your supply chain flow smoothly with as few errors as possible. This is only possible when different departments are talking to each other and know what’s going on. 

6. Analyze Vendor Relationships and determine if there is an issue with your suppliers.

A Point of Sale system or POS is the modern equivalent of an Electronic Cash Register (ECR) and a credit card terminal. It can be used by any type of business regardless of size or type. Directly or indirectly, they cover every area of a business. They can make all aspects of day-to-day running more efficient and profitable, from stock ordering to post-sale, targeted marketing. Also, these systems are now truly cost-effective and easy to use.   

A POS system is made up of 2 components – hardware and software. While the physical machine is important and works like an ECR, a Point of Sale’s true advantage lies in its ability to capture, store, and analyze sales and purchase data ie the software. 

POS solutions positively impact your bottom line as they increase efficiency and productivity, save time, and lower your cost of doing business. They also manage inventory and provide detailed reports to improve on customer and vendor relationships. Upgrading from an ECR to a POS results in a solid return on investment (ROI), both in terms of cost and business intelligence.

Benefits of a POS

• Lower Overhead

With automation in place, you may not need as many employees in your store.

• Increase store profitability

Effective inventory management with accurate buyer behaviour information can facilitate personalised and targeted marketing campaigns.

• Expanded Payment Capabilities

Customers like having payment options. POS also include the ability to diverse payments types such as EMV chip cards, contactless payments (NFC), and mobile wallet payments such as Apple Pay, Android Pay, and Samsung Pay. In one fell swoop, you can boost sales and customer satisfaction. 

• Increased Efficiency and Greater Accuracy

Built-in time management features improve productivity while less time is spent correcting errors.

• Inventory Management

Unlike cash registers, POS systems have advanced features letting you manage inventory efficiently. These systems provide essential inventory data which is not available with cash registers.

• Ease of Use

Given the popularity and accessibility of touchscreens, learning a POS system is simple especially ones with intuitive interfaces. The software is easy to learn which means less training time and more time to be productive.

• Detailed Receipts and Reporting

Most POS systems compile different customizable reports including daily sales figures, stock updates, and profit and expenses. Through these reports, you can see sales trends such as which products are in demand, allowing you to organize your stock before or after a particular season. Most importantly, these reports will allow you to identify areas where you won’t need to spend a lot of money.

Launching an e-commerce operation requires lower capital as you save on overhead costs such as store lease, on-site staff, warehousing or space for inventory, etc. It is also more accessible to the wider public giving you more sales options. Ideally, some of these “saved” costs would be invested on a solid digital marketing strategy that leverages a website, social media, and Google.     

It’s not all doom and gloom for brick and mortar stores though. Research has consistently shown that customers prefer touching the product and the instant gratification factor stores offer. Further, there are some products and services that are just difficult to upsell or sell online. Finally, never underestimate the power of customer loyalty. Many users return to a business because they received good service and felt positively after their experience.  

For a successful store in modern times, you will have to pick the right location taking into account factors like store surroundings and accessibility. Also, you will have to invest in the best quality store staff. They have to be more like brand ambassadors than sales people. This is because many people have done online research into the product and are better informed than before. 

The contemporary trend in tech e-retail is now in fact offline stores! Amazon kicked things off in 2015 with a bookstore and since then the internet Behemoth has made $1.3 billion from in-person sales. Another popular trend is pop-up shops. These are little kiosks or test shops that are often a viral hit, spark brand awareness, and generate sales while keeping costs minimal.   

So now should you invest online or offline? Both, an omnichannel sales model is how to survive in the modern day business world. An omnichannel method just means using multiple ways or mediums to make sales. So, ideally you would have both a web presence and a physical one. This will allow you to satisfy your local users while also staying on the lookout for other prospects.    

Return On Investment: 

• Adapted to changing requirements fueled by growth and operational overhaul 
• Maintained company’s lean model via cloud technology and remote access
• Integrated nature of software resulted in more efficient use of company resources such as time and energy  
• Systematic value additions such as prepopulated T&Cs increased operational efficiency and reduced wastage   

Brief Summary:

Started as an experiment at a founder’s house, Diggn’It soon found itself growing in positive demand. This led the founders’ to pursue the company seriously and invest and grow its operational capacity.  

With basic information about raw materials and procurement, Chameleon gave the Diggn’ It team quick and accurate production and cost schedules. This information made it easy to consider margins, set retail prices, track purchases, and manage accounting. The ease of the software allowed Diggn’ It to organize streamlined, scalable business processes while saving invaluable time, energy, resources, and focus.    

The Need:

Ever-evolving operational processes require a flexible, adaptable business software.   

As a growing startup, Diggn’ It needed to formalize its operations. They needed to be recorded, tracked, and analyzed. Furthermore, the data had to be remotely accessible to maintain the company’s lean model and global workforce. 

Essentially, Diggn’ It desired a centralized, integrated backbone that would allow the team to expend their time and resources on growth, customer satisfaction, and an expanding product line.

Chameleon was perfect for a startup like Diggn’It given the software’s mix of features and benefits: 

• Adaptable

The grooming company’s processes were still being developed and would undergo further change. They required a software that could easily evolve in tow.  

• Cloud based

Cloud-enabled software would support the startup’s online, remote, and agile nature.  

• Integrated & Centralized

Decision making becomes easy when you know your position. Storing all the relevant data and information in one repository streamlines the team’s thought process and results in an informed outcome.     

• Bilingual

As an Arabian company, Diggn’ It’s workforce is comprised of English and Arabic speakers. 

• Easy to learn 

  Members of different departments would be inputting information. This meant the software had to be easy to use, teach, and learn.       

The Solution & Results:

A versatile business software that empowered Diggn’ It to go from idea to multi-national influencer.

Chameleon provided the digital backbone that allowed Diggn’ It to easily track and analyze the business. Automation and digitization made the transition from home manufacturing to an outsourced supplier easy, effective, and efficient. As a result, the Diggn’ It team was able to focus their efforts on social media and general marketing. Without an integrated accounting and manufacturing system, it would have been difficult to balance inventory levels of supplies and track sales. This became especially crucial in 2018 when Saudi Arabia instituted VAT policies that required auditable receipts, invoices, and purchase orders. 

Chameleon’s value-add was immediate and across the board:

• Increased accounting operations and reporting was becoming time consuming and prone to errors

As the company grew, so did its accounting and bookkeeping operations. To save time and avoid unnecessary errors, Diggn’It thought it prudent to integrate a software module to handle accounting, financing, and reporting. It needed to be accessible by an external accountant and create organized files and folders to be easily searched, filtered, or sorted through.       

• Growing, uncoordinated operations threatened the lean model 

Expanding processes were threatening Diggn’ It’s lean model. The Diggn’ It team debated increasing headcount to handle the new operations but this option was undesirable as it was costly, did not ensure a streamlined process, and would deflect focus away from growing the business.   

• Less time and energy to focus on consumer engagement and marketing

As a social startup, consumer engagement, PR, and marketing are crucial for Diggn’It’s success and growth. The more time spent on backend operation, the less time management could spend creating content, marketing, and advertising. 

• Difficulty scaling to support growing sales channels

A digital system allowed Diggn’It to serve domestic and foreign distributors and customers quickly and easily. The system handled multiple currencies and tracked the supply chain with ease letting the Diggn’ It team focus on core tasks.  

Conclusion:   

Expanding product offerings, serving more markets and retailers, and achieving the highest level of customer engagement and satisfaction are just some of the many areas Diggn’ It is succeeding at today. Their results demonstrate the importance of a backend system that can scale and adapt to changing business operations. A flexible, integrated ERP system improved productivity, reduced errors, and provided a backend structure that streamlined Diggn’ It’s business processes while staying lean. This allowed the team to concentrate on marketing, social media, sales, customers, and growth.