Friday, January 28, 2022

 

When it comes to deciding who gets inventory sometimes you need to pick and choose 

Nothing to do with your friends, this is just about business right? when you have limited availability on inventory sometimes you need the flexibility to review your open orders and decide who get's what. A simple FIFO model for allocating products or setting priority levels by customer might just not cut it.

With the new MDS Manual Allocation System making these decisions just got a lot easier, just point, click, and ship




Decide on an order by order or customer by customer basis, you can drill down by customer or product and allocate partially or completely. By giving the tools and visibility into the allocation process you can allow the standard business rules you have in place but allow you to override on as as needed basis. Once again allowing you to maintain the best possible customer service by using technology to help you manage your business more effectively.





For more information on TSH or MDS call The Systems House, Inc. at 1-800- MDS-5556. Or send a message to sales@tshinc.com
Click here and tell us how we can help you with your business solutions.

Friday, January 21, 2022

The Power of Color..

 


Using the power of color can change how 

people use your software and increase productivity and view your business.  




Like death and taxes, there is no escaping COLOR It is ubiquitous, but it's rarely recognized for it's power to control peoples behavior. By utilizing the "Power of Color" within the MDS system you can easily draw attention or  give simple visual queues on any screen or field with the click of a button. 
As an example the Open Accounts Receivable Screen now shows and past due invoices in RED - alerting a customer service rep visually that the invoice needs to get paid. 

Simple and easy system changes like this allow you to control how people use the system and build a more user friendly environment. 





For more on the power of color see below. 

The Power of Color


Red is an engaging and emotive color. drawing a user's attention to elements on a screen.

Yellow is the first color a person distinguishes in the brain. Excellent for use in classrooms. 

Orange has the characteristics halfway between red and yellow. It is one the best colors for stimulating learning.

Blue is the most tranquilizing color.

Green is also a calming color. Generally Associated with positive or good outcomes. 

Brown promotes a sense of security, relaxation, and reduces fatigue.

Gray is the most neutral color.
Dark Colors lower stress and increase feelings of peacefulness.
Bright Colors such as red, orange, and yellow spark energy and creativity.

How does your software make you feel? 

For more information on TSH or MDS call The Systems House, Inc. at 1-800- MDS-5556. Or send a message to sales@tshinc.com
Click here and tell us how we can help you with your business solutions.

Friday, January 14, 2022

Fully Virtual Means More Warehouse Space..

 

Turns out bigger is not always better when it comes to distribution.


But not surprisingly warehouse space is on the rise. It's no secret covid has decimated the office space marketplace, retail and office space are in a nose dive. 
And smaller more manageable warehouse look to be the future. with more space available at lower prices. 
Now might be the right time to lock in a lease on some warehouse space. 

Most of our blog posts look at what the larger distributors are doing and try to adapt the concepts to small and medium sized business. But for this week a surprising trend is emerging..
The E-Commerce Supply chain is driving demand for smaller, Urban Distribution Centers.

In today's world of e-commerce distribution, speed and mobility are key. Just like how any customer who orders a widget from Amazon.com expects it to be on their doorstep two days later or less, businesses ordering commercial products now expect the same speedy service from distributors.

As the pace of B2B continues to transform distribution trends, it appears one of them is in the distribution centers themselves. New data from real estate firm CBRE Inc. shows that demand for industrial facilities under 100,000 square feet in urban areas is on the rise.

Traditionally, large distribution centers have been located in suburbs and small towns, where property and labor are cheaper than large cities. But with end users growing more reliant on 1-2 day, or even same-day delivery, distributors and retailers have had to find ways of moving products to them faster.

David Egan, CBRE’s head of U.S. industrial research, told the Wall Street Journal, “You need to expand and make your supply chain much more complex if you want to be able to promise and deliver on that same-hour, same-day or overnight delivery everyone is coming to expect.”

One of those growing ways retailers/distributors are moving products, CBRE has found, is by snatching up smaller distribution facilities in urban "light industrial space," keeping their logistics network mobile, and perhaps cheaper.

These facilities are often in older industrial buildings where location is the big factor instead of a priority on the latest, greatest machinery found in large warehouses. CBRE's research found that such urban light industrial property has more availability than the increasingly tight market for large industrial facilities, and for relatively reasonable rents.

CBRE reported that industrial real estate demand has pushed rents to near pre-recession levels, growing by 1.3 percent in Q2 2015 and nearly 3 percent so far this year. The firm expects 3.2 percent of additional growth through the end of 2015, which would bring rents to within 4 percent of the previous cycle high.

CBRE analyzed 44 neighborhoods prone to probable online shoppers across 14 major metropolitan areas and, according to the report, found that Atlanta, Boston, Chicago and Philadelphia offer ample access to both e-commerce customers and light industrial space choices.
Image result for stockroom healthcare
The practice of adding smaller, urban distribution centers certainly suits retailers of consumer products, but what about distributors of other industrial or healthcare products?

Population centers may be more for the retail crowd, but what CBRE's research shows is that distribution centers can have a place there too, even if it's in smaller pieces than massive warehouses. Using smaller, urban DCs could be effective for stocking your most popular B2B products instead of feeling a need to include absolutely everything in your product catalog at every location. The traditional single warehouse or JIT Model is changing. If you have the product closer to or at your customers IE a Stockroom at a customer and treat is as a mini warehouse.
You can take advantage of the same concepts.

Consumer retailers have begun using crowdsourced delivery services such as Deliv, or even Uber-like rideshare services , Amazon is testing a new delivery service called Amazon Flex that allow ordinary citizens to drive packages to destinations. Those services go hand-in-hand with brick-and-mortar retail stores in population centers. But most those packages are delivered to an individual person, whereas  B2B orders are going to other businesses. We have yet to see any many distributors jump on the bandwagon of those delivery services, but that's not to say it won't eventually happen. Especially for those who run their own delivery fleet now.


Image result for doctors stockroomBut here is an interesting concept, many distributors operate stockrooms and offsite customer owned inventory locations today.
Rather then viewing those as endpoints in your supply chain, change the view to a more 360 degree view and understand they can be satellite warehouses providing the right amount of inventory at the right location at the right time.

How many doctors offices would crowdsource and deliver for you?

If you have a medical center with thirty offices in a building, and half of them can hold some extra inventory, by using an effective inventory management and shipping solution ( Like MDS-Nx ) you can create those warehouses and get customers the products they need just like amazon.


For more information on TSH or MDS call The Systems House, Inc. at 1-800- MDS-5556. Or send a message to sales@tshinc.com
Click here and tell us how we can help you with your business solutions.

Friday, January 7, 2022

Who was Igor Ansoff?

 



Food for Thought...  According to HubSpot.com - A marketing and sales software company. 
  • Customers believe that sales reps are 88% knowledgeable on product and only 24% on business expertise.
  • Nearly 57% of B2B prospects and customers feel that their sales teams are not prepared for the first meeting. 
  • A whopping 68% of B2B organizations have not identified their their sales processes and marketing tactics.
So we can see that most companies as well as the sales people really need some help in figuring out how to effectively increase sales.  When asking business leaders about their sales performance, a common reply is they could do better, but aren’t sure how. They point to the following common issues as they relate to their salesforce:
  • Lack of direction/focus.
  • Not knowing what they are doing or where they spend their time.
  • Not selling other existing products/services to existing accounts.
  • Unsure if they are pursuing new customers.
Add to all of this, the less than favorable business climate facing distribution and it would seem to validate the need for improvement in the sales discipline and a great opportunity for those who do so. But where to focus? How to Grow? 
Here’s an easy reality check. As a distributor, you have a purchasing department. Ever ask them about their frustrations with vendors? Solicit their feedback and see if your organization mirrors any of it. Perhaps there are immediate actions you can take to improve your performance as a supplier.
These are the simple, "low hanging fruit" we can start with. 

Need some more ideas? Lets see what the Russians think.. 
The Ansoff Matrix is a strategic planning tool that provides a framework to help executives, senior managers, and marketers devise strategies for future growth.[1][2] It is named after Russian American Igor Ansoff, who came up with the concept. 

Using an Ansoff Matrix, you can get a quick snapshot of what opportunities exist:


The obvious choices for growth are promoting existing products into new markets and adding new products to promote to existing customers. Of course, after maximizing these options, the final one is full diversification via new products and markets. Remember however when choosing new markets you should include customers and industries and with proper analytics, you can identify which ones are most profitable and should be pursued using your ERP System. (If you can't - Call us...) 

While the Ansoff Matrix suggests diversification is new products and markets, expanding your existing products with existing markets is also diversification and the easiest and most profitable method for growth.  In our parlance a much better example of low hanging fruit. 

So to summarize: 
1. Ask your purchasing team what the headaches are as a buyer and make sure you don't have the same problems.
2. Follow the crazy Russian and sell more to the same folks, one suggestion is to use our comparative sales analysis tools which allow you to take a prototype client and compare their purchases to other customers to see what you should be selling them. But the concept is all you really need. 


Ready to Grow? Need a Partner to Grow with? 

For more information on TSH or MDS call The Systems House, Inc. at 1-800- MDS-5556. Or send a message to sales@tshinc.com

Click here and tell us how we can help you with your business solutions.