In the past couple of years there has been a shift in the order management systems. Earlier customer service departments used to take a lead on order management projects but now supply chain leaders are taking charge as they need to reduce costs, improve customer experiences and drive added value to their company.

This shift has led to automation of sales order management systems and an emergence of this moment has given us four reasons to automate sales order management systems.

1.Reduce hard cost: Automated sales order management system works by transforming traditional, paper based processes into an automated workflow. This way many hard costs like office consumables, paper and equipment needed to manually process sales orders is reduced. One of the biggest advantages of automating the sales order management system is to avoid the order entry error which is not possible in manual methods. Automating avoids errors like human errors through intelligent technology so that the company does not have to bear unwanted expenses.

2.Soft Cost: Soft costs are unqualified activities which are exempt from balance sheets that can have a big impact on supply chain performance, yet are often overlooked. A customer service executive spends 20% of their time creating a sales entry and handling the process which reduces his bandwidth of work. With automation, sales orders are instantly created in the system and free up the customer sales executives to better serve customers and provide more time for staff members to coordinate the delivery of goods and eliminate added costs.

3.  Visibility across board: The increasing complexity of supply chain management makes visibility a necessity for owners to mitigate risk and cut costs. Automation of the sales order management process adds visibility to the process and provides companies with performance indicators that enable users to facilitate daily tasks, monitor performance and take quick action on problems or identify opportunities. The importance of visibility in the supply chain cannot be overstated. It is necessary for accurate forecasting and insight into the true efficiency of supply chain operations.

4. Enhanced customer experience: Supply chain customers’ care about the customer experience a lot.  After all, the role of the supply chain is to quickly, efficiently and accurately transport goods to customers. If anything interferes with the delivery of a product, it can put an organization’s relationship, and revenue, with that customer on the line. To improve the customer experience, customer service executives need the time to communicate, engage and grow relationships with customers. One of the best ways to empower CSRs to provide a top-notch customer experience is to repurpose them to more value-added tasks like resolving customer claims, answering customer questions, etc. By removing virtually all low-value tasks from the process, automated order management frees up customer service teams to focus on important customer-centric activities instead of manual data entry – allowing them to provide an exceptional customer experience every time.

Supply chain owners hoping to increase operational efficiency and value through cost reduction and an improved customer experience need the right tools to facilitate their goals – like an automated order management solution.