Over the last several years, distributors worldwide have embraced the omnichannel experience.
Broadly speaking, omnichannel distribution involves interacting with suppliers and end clients through a combination of digital and traditional channels. Moving toward an omnichannel model not only provides a frictionless experience for customers but also enables distributors to adapt more effectively to ever-changing market conditions.
If your organization wants to diversify how it serves clients and interacts with suppliers, you can leverage our playbook to establish and execute your omnichannel experience.
To set yourself up for success, we recommend that you:
Conduct a Self-Evaluation
Before you begin investing in new technological resources, it’s vital that you conduct an extensive self-assessment of your business. During this evaluation, identify which existing tools and technologies will support your omnichannel initiative and determine what new solutions you’ll need to better serve your clients.
After identifying functional gaps in your technology suite, you can shift your focus to your organizational processes, pinpointing processes that can be streamlined through automation.
For instance, let’s say your team manually composes and manages email campaigns. Implementing automation technologies will allow you to run these campaigns more easily while freeing up your staff to focus on more dynamic tasks that engage their unique skills and expertise.
Prioritize Features and Capabilities
Once you’ve created a list of functional gaps in your technology and outlined processes that are ripe for automation, rank them based on potential benefits and project cost.
Any change that carries a high cost and yields a small return should be toward the bottom of your priority list. While you may want to make these changes eventually, your main focus should be implementing improvements that yield a strong ROI and a short time to value.
Remember, developing an omnichannel experience for your clients takes time. Don’t rush the process and take on too many projects at once. Otherwise, you may find yourself incurring excessive — and often avoidable — costs.
In most instances, improving existing fulfillment practices will be easier and more cost-effective than building entirely new omnichannel processes from the ground up. While you’ll eventually need to implement new processes, it’s best to rack up a few smaller wins first.
For instance, start by making incremental changes to your workflow configurations to promote business efficiency. Doing so will free up human capital and financial resources that you can then reinvest into larger initiatives.
Develop a Game Plan
Now that you know what resources you need to make your omnichannel initiative a success, it’s time to create a cohesive game plan. Your strategy must include:
- Business objectives: Your game plan should outline broad business goals as well as incremental objectives. Outline the current state of your business so you have a baseline to measure your success.
- Omnichannel technologies: Reiterate what technologies you already have in place and identify which solutions you’ll need to implement.
- Completion timetables: While you won’t be able to set a definite start date just yet, you can develop estimated completion timeframes for each phase of your omnichannel initiative.
- Contingencies: Inevitably, you’ll run into some surprise stumbling blocks on your journey toward omnichannel distribution. With that in mind, make sure you develop contingency plans you can fall back on if something goes awry.
A game plan that addresses each of these factors will help you execute a strong omnichannel experience.
Implement an Omnichannel Framework
If your organization is still relying on aging legacy systems, you’ll find that a lack of technology is the biggest roadblock on your journey to omnichannel distribution. Fortunately, you can set yourself up for success by implementing a true omnichannel framework like Acumatica’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform.
This leading ERP software includes the tools and functionalities you need to automate redundant tasks, gather and leverage essential client data, and elevate the customer experience.
Acumatica ERP software can support any distributor’s omnichannel initiative, regardless of your niche. It can be tailored to meet your organization’s unique needs and features robust capabilities to fuel your modernization efforts.
Ready to Get Started? ASC Can Help With Omnichannel Distribution
If you’re ready to embrace omnichannel distribution and upgrade your legacy software to Acumatica ERP, you need an experienced deployment partner like Advanced Solutions and Consulting.
We take the hassle out of migrating your business data so you can focus on what matters most: your clients. Contact us today to schedule a consultation or learn more.