Businesses are moving in hyper speeds, and leaders are demanding extreme efficiency, compliance, and visibility especially when it comes to investing in an inventory warehouse management solution. As demand rises and our clients’ expectations continue to soar, the desire for automated solutions has become more of a necessity than a nice to have. Below we will provide you with some key areas to consider when evaluating an inventory warehouse management solution.
1. Total Cost of Ownership
When considering a transformation project such as Inventory Warehouse Management solution, consider internal resources first. Who on your team has bandwidth to champion and project manage this initiative? Are your end users on board for the project along with leadership to ensure change management won’t be an obstacle. Do you have a clear up-front understanding of the pricing including, license, implementation, consulting, and integration fees?
2. Relationship
Invest in a relationship with your vendors and allow them to enter your world. Building trust and being transparent will allow you to have a faster TCO (total cost of ownership). The transparency will lead to a better understanding of the risks involved, put yourself in position to receive success stories and best practices. This person will be a key pillar in the success of your project, you will need to trust them with being prescriptive of your needs, provide ongoing support, onboarding, and other boxes that need to be checked in your defined process. Take note of the vendor’s responsiveness and attention to detail. These are small clues that give you a sneak peek into what you can come to expect from a potential partner.
3. Training
Proper training and user acceptance is a large piece that can quickly be overlooked. How long will it take for your team to be fully functional within the solution? What approach is recommended in a company of our size? These are questions that need to be addressed early in the engagement to ensure you have a good understanding of what’s all included in the training and to have a better understanding of the timeline agreed upon. Does the user experience compliment and improve your teams’ output? Ask these questions both internally and externally early in the engagement process and it will lead to an overall better experience.
4. Support
I am provided a success manager, will this be someone that was involved in the presales process that can quickly articulate my business function needs and provide valuable support? Will I be passed along to another division within the organization, or will I have access to the team that helped influence my decision? This is another piece that can be overlooked based on industry standards, however it’s something that should be clear and easy to understand from the beginning of the journey. Companies that truly want to partner will want to be side by side to ensure a successful implementation and partnership.
