Now, instead of having the accounting software, over time this distribution company adds additional software for inventory, EDI, shipping, eCommerce, and the list could go on. While each piece of software probably does a good job on its own, it is better to have one system that will integrate with other software or processes. Here are 5 reasons why.

1. Less time taken to get the job done

Working with software that doesn’t communicate causes double work. Data needs to be taken from one software and re-entered into another software. Having one system that doesn’t require re-entry of data saves lots of time.

2. Less Mistakes

If data is being taken from one software and re-entered into another, there is a good chance that costly errors are being made.

3. Higher Productivity

If your employees are not spending time re-entering data, while working with multiple systems, there is more time available to do additional tasks.

4. A Lean Environment

By cutting out the increased time spent dealing with multiple systems, you may reduce the need to hire more personnel to handle company growth.

5. Cost of Having Multiple Software Systems

If you have to maintain more than one software system, it can be more expensive to maintain. Instead of involving one software company for support, you are now involving multiple companies; each one willing to support (and charge you for) their software. This often leads to higher fees than you would see from dealing with one software vendor.

There are many distributors that have far more inventory than they care to have. Many of the companies that we talk with do not have a good inventory management system to control inventory levels. The systems being used are good, for the most part, for tracking current inventory and knowing current stock levels, but where many of the systems fall short is in the area of replenishing. Answers to questions such as when to buy, how much to buy, and how often to buy often rely on methods that are not accurate.

For accurate inventory levels, consider a system that has an inventory replenishment process that will not only take history into account, but will also consider other variables such seasonable items, shipping time, and vendor criteria (minimums or discounts).

You may consider your company pretty safe. You shred important documents before you dispose of them. You have a firewall and have taken other security measures to make sure that your system can’t be accessed from people outside of the company. All of those security measures are great and keep your company’s information mostly secure.

What about the printed documents? The physical  reports, memos, and other types of documents that might be sitting on your employees desks, out in plain view.

Now suppose that you have someone other than your employees that visit your company or, say, a maintenance service that comes in the evening hours. Do you really want all of that information sitting out in plain view for these people?

Practice extra security by digitizing your documents (digital images such as PDF files) and sharing them with your employees that way, rather than printing them out for distribution.

In the current publication of The Distributor’s Link magazine, I came across an article titled Sure Thing: Why Every Fastener Distributor Needs To Grab A Page On Google+.

While it makes sense for the fastener distributor, it also makes sense for any distributor who wants added exposure to their business; in other words, every distributor.

The unique benefits from having a Google+ page include improved search engine rankings, more exposure for your company, another way to communicate to your customers and potential customers, and hangouts.

Let’s start off with improved search engine ranking. Let’s face it, Google wants very badly for Google+ to succeed. Google also happens to have the largest search engine, or at least the most widely used one. Google plays very friendly with its own products and indexes Google+ business pages, as well as personal pages for it’s search engine. This can give your business a higher search ranking and add more exposure to your company. As people like your content, they can “+1″ it (this is somewhat the equivalent of “liking” something through Facebook, if your familiar with that concept). Getting a “+1″ is like getting someone’s stamp of approval, and weighs well with Google search.

Another good use for your Google+ page is to use it as another means of communication with your customers and potential customers. Unlike a newsletter, it allows for two way communication and sharing between you and your customers. If your company runs regular specials or promotions, Google+ is an instant way to communicate this to your customers and other that you would like to have as customers.

The other thing that I previously mentioned was “hangouts”. Google hangouts are a video or voice conferencing service. Presently, there can be up to ten people in a hangout. Hangouts could be used for educating your customers, or another way for customers to contact you for customer service related issues. Granted, it isn’t natural for people to call using their webcam, but it is also becoming more common than it was even a couple of years ago.

Best of all, it does not take much effort to get a Google+ page up and going.

Cloud computing has really gotten to be a big deal. Many smaller companies are looking to run applications hosted in the cloud, without their perceived complication of running their own equipment for their business applications.

If you haven’t heard already, Dell has acquired Wyse Technologies. The move made sense for Dell, a corporation known mainly for it’s PC’s and laptops. This gives Dell the opportunity to satisfy market demand for cloud computing through more of a virtual model.

The PC market is flat at best as people and companies are moving more to centralized computing model. Businesses tend to be moving to virtual environments where devices are communicating with one or more servers, as opposed to running applications (programs) locally on the PC. Often, these servers are running at the same locale, but not always. The servers can be running at a remote location – often you can find this type of set-up at companies that have several locations.

Related articles

• Dell acquires Wyse to extend cloud computing offerings (slashgear.com)

Through the use of document management, those documents in your file cabinets can be become digital images for easy retrieval right from your computer.

The Document Management add-on for the DistributionPlus distribution software integrates document management with your DistributionPlus for easy access to all types of documents as they relate to your customers, vendors, and products.

We’ve been seeing a trend of distributors needing to use eCommerce in a slightly different way than the traditional eCommerce site with a shopping cart and checkout. Distributors with external sales reps are wanting an eCommerce system for their sales reps to be able to place orders on behalf of their customers. A remote sales entry system, if you will.

I would surmise that the lion’s share of companies out there, particularly the companies that are considered small companies, are still operating in environments where there are reems of paper shuffled about. All of this paper, in the form of reports, orders, purchase orders, product specifications, etc., is shuffled about is eventually stored away for future reference.

We have been internally testing a document imaging/storage product that integrates with our DistributionPlus software to prevent such environments. Countless hours have been saved by using the product, and we are excited to be able to offer a product like this to companies. A product that will save companies the kind of time that we have been experiencing.

Look for more details in the coming weeks as we introduce the docuent imaging/storage product.

Last week, there was a blog posted at Capterra titled, Can You Spot the Hole in an Integrated System. It is a great story, and very truthful, about distribution companies moving to larger and integrated software systems. In the article, the author (Ryan) states that smaller and more specialized software is often times more flexible than larger integrated software. In other words, smaller software, such as accounting software, is more flexible for accounting than a integrated package would be.

The article goes on to talk about trade-offs in software. When your company get to a certain size, and can longer function on multiple “specialized” software packages, there is a need for a larger integrated software system. The trade-off mentioned is this: while benefiting the company as a whole, some areas of the company (accounting was used as the example) will forfeit certain flexibilities that they have grown accustomed to.

My point in bringing up this article is that companies do not necessarily have to give up flexibility when moving to an integrated system. In talking with companies, we hear this over and over again that companies have had to modify the way that they run their business in order to fit the software that they chose to purchase.

The developer of the software should be able to modify, not customize, the software so that it is flexible. The software ought to fit the way you run your business, and not the other way around.

In what is sounding to be a service similar to PayPal, Visa is launching a digital wallet service for ecommerce shopping. Like PayPal, the Visa digital wallet will let you keep your information in the digital wallet, so that when you go to an ecommerce site, you don’t have to fill in the long forms usually required for the billing and shipping address. With this feature, I’m also making the assumption that, like PayPal, you would not be required to register at a site in order to purchase from that site.

Since this is Visa, there is a large contrast with PayPal in that there is no option to withdraw from you bank account; at least there is no mention of that ability in the article. The exception to this would certainly be if you were using a Visa branded debit card that withdraws from your checking account.

Implications for Ecommerce Site Owners

With a service like this, the consumer or buyer can remain anonymous on your site. They never have to fill out a form, leaving you with little information after the transaction has been made. How do you bring them back to your site again? When the buyer is checking out, they will have an option to opt-in for offers and future promotions. This is a really good thing, because they are actually giving you permission to send them promotions for your product.

Those site owners that store credit card information would not need to do that anymore. This means that you don’t have the liability of storing financial information of others.

Related articles

• Credit Cards Declining as the Means for Online Payment (cptechinc.com)
• Visa Looks Beyond The Card With One-Click Digital Wallet (gigaom.com)
• Visa targets Amazon, PayPal with its own digital wallet (zdnet.com)