Nowaday, IT tools make or break any business that you put up. You already know what kind of tools you need, but the next choice may not be as easy. How to properly choose tools should be as important as any major decision for your business moving forward. Whether it is efficiency, user friendliness, or integrability, you should not cut corners when picking the right software. In this article, we will try to create a checklist for choosing the one of the most commonly used business software – the inventory system.
The first step in choosing the right inventory system is defining what right
is. A choice fatigue usually arises when you come across this dilemma. How do
you define the right choice and how is it related to the perfect choice. Do
either of these actually exist? The market right now is probably already
saturated with inventory systems, wherein each of which are proclaiming to be
the savior of your business. And with this many possible options, it is simply
not possible to define the best or the right inventory system. What we can do,
however, is to rank inventory systems and pick the most suitable one from the
bunch.
Software is even for the exact same purpose differs from each other on a lot of different characteristics. This is unlike buying a tool from a hardware store where you can buy whatever hammer you want and you know it will do the job just fine. Software has many considerations to be mindful of.
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Choosing the Right Inventory System by Focusing on Your Own Business
The first step to choosing the right inventory system is to forget that you were looking for an inventory system. Let me explain. The reason why it is so difficult for some businesses to choose software is because they do not take their actual operations into account before making a decision. For instance, when I was going to buy a word processing tool, I can safely cross off so many options just by looking ahead on the environment where the tool will be deployed. If I am limited to open source software, I can cross off enterprise software. If I do not have internet for each of my workstations, then browser run software should immediately be off the table.
The warehouse and your storekeepers should not wait on the establishment of your inventory system before they start creating their own manual system. Let them figure out themselves how to best manage the inventory data and then cross out choices that would not work with the system that they have.
Focusing on your business means understanding which parts of your business will be affected by the inventory system that you aim to introduce. However, it is also important to note that focus, in this instance, is a conscious effort to reduce anything that may seem like a distraction. Tools, no matter how potentially helpful, can hamper your production if you do not take precaution.
Inventory systems used to be simple straightforward tools that have as little room for complications as possible. However, with the advent of internet based apps and the increase in broadband speeds, inventory systems have become complicated for better and for worse. It is quite easy to get astounded by the capability of modern software and start procuring extra features that are not necessarily essential to the business. This is called the feature creep and it is easy to fall down this rabbit hole.
Choosing the Right Inventory System by Analyzing Your Needs
The first mistake you can make whenever you are buying new software is to assume that the software, upon installation, will solve all your needs. No matter how concisely made the piece of software is, it will not be able to predict the kinds of businesses that procure it. Businesses come in many shapes and sizes, and although customizability has somewhat allowed software to be reused in multiple scenarios, there will always be blindspots.
The inventory system, for instance, should be able to cater to the most basic stock operations. However, the kind of stock that you store in the warehouse vary widely and should be impossible to generalize. A good example of this are the old inventory systems that do not understand how to stock software licenses.
When you are just starting out your business, as a general rule, you should always try to tread lightly. Emails, office tools, and other basic business processes can be had for free on common platforms. The same goes for inventory systems. It may be haphazard to buy inventory systems and all its features at once. Figure out first which one you may be needing and which ones will give you an advantage.
In case you are building your own inventory system, the same strategy should still apply. Do not task your programmers to create the most complex inventory system without clarifying the requirements first. This would be a waste of time for everyone and the team may have to sacrifice quality to fit in all the requirements.
Choosing the Right Inventory System by Doing Proper Research
Before you can choose software from a list of choices, you have to build up that list first. There are a lot of areas where you can scout inventory systems. The first choice, would of course be the internet. Try not to narrow your search into the first page of the search engines however you should make sure that you are selecting software from reputable sources. A quick read at reviews should give you an idea if the product is indeed what it says it is.
Another option you have is to ask your partners for what inventory systems they use. This way, you do not only gain reviews from businesses who have first hand experience, you can actually work together to share information. Be careful however as your business and theirs may be completely different so always ask from the people selling the inventory system themselves.
