Do you feel your business lags in managing its supply chain? Maybe you find it difficult to track your inventory properly. Or maybe your organization fails to process customer orders on time. These are common issues most businesses face due to which they can’t achieve the growth they should. Moreover, unexpected delays in receiving orders hamper your company’s image. This is where the need for NetSuite supply chain management (SCM) comes in.
Managing your supply chain is vital for success in today’s fast-paced business world. Here, NetSuite ERP offers a cloud-based solution through its SCM module that can help take charge of your supply chain. This blog will shed light on the key NetSuite supply chain management features. Along with that, we’ll also discuss the best practices to make the most out of this module.
So, without any further delay, let’s begin understanding NetSuite SCM.
What is NetSuite Supply Chain Management?
As we know supply chain is the key process in most businesses like distribution, wholesale, manufacturing, and retail. If your organization has a well-organized supply chain, it will enable your business to:
- Maintain clear visibility of vendor relationships
- Address customer needs promptly
- Capitalize on market trends in an efficient and structured manner
- Get your inventory filled before it falls short
No matter how difficult it seems to manage the supply chain, it’s not impossible. With NetSuite Supply Chain Management, you can even 10x your success in your particular industry. First of all, a successful NetSuite ERP implementation is essential to attain the expected results. Then only, you can make the best use of its supply chain modules.
NetSuite ERP plays a pivotal role in simplifying a business’s entire supply chain. From the point of order placement to the efficient flow of goods to the customers, it can handle everything. Plus, its capabilities extend to providing you with real-time insights into your business operations, wherever you want. NetSuite SCM offers a suite of features that cover all the important aspects of the supply chain. Let’s discuss them in the next section.
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Key NetSuite Supply Chain Management Features
Do you know where businesses lack the most while managing their supply chain? They cannot forecast the demands accurately. Excess production of goods leads to wastage, affecting their financial health. On the contrary, inadequate manufacturing of items can delay the order completion, impacting your reputation. NetSuite can help you deal with these problems and offers solutions through its supply chain. Let’s take a look at some of the NetSuite supply chain management features:
1. Supply Planning
One of the biggest challenges in supply chain management is forecasting demand accurately. Without a clear understanding of future demand, businesses may end up with excess inventory or stockouts. Both of which can have financial repercussions for your business.
NetSuite Supply Chain Management features advanced planning tools that can predict future demand more correctly. Using historical data, market trends, and demand forecasting algorithms, this module can generate positive results. This is how it works:
- Analyzes sales data, seasonal trends, and market fluctuations
- Decides on inventory procurement to meet customer demand
- Minimizes excess inventory costs
2. Supply Chain Execution
Executing supply chain processes, such as procurement, production, and distribution, can be complex. If done manually, the lack of visibility into the supply chain can cause delays, errors, and inefficiencies. NetSuite SCM makes the execution of the supply chain easy. It automates the processes from procurement to order fulfillment. All thanks to its features like:
- Automated purchase order creation
- Vendor management
- Real-time tracking of orders and shipments, businesses can improve efficiency, reduce errors, and ensure smoother operations throughout the supply chain.
3. NetSuite Inventory Management
The inability to manage inventory properly can result in excess inventory or stockouts, that come with increased carrying costs. Without real-time visibility into inventory levels, businesses may struggle to meet customer demand. NetSuite SCM provides robust tools for inventory management. They offer real-time visibility into inventory levels, movements, and locations.
Some of its features include barcode scanning, bin management, and automated replenishment. By using them, businesses can:
- Optimize inventory levels
- Reduce stockouts
- Minimize carrying costs
- Ensure product availability to meet customer demand
4. NetSuite Order Management
Manual processes for handling purchase orders are prone to errors, delays, and inefficiencies. Tracking these orders across multiple vendors and suppliers is another hassle. This can lead to delays in procurement and fulfillment. NetSuite supply chain tools automate these processes, starting from the creation or approval of purchase orders to vendor communication. With its features, you can ensure timely delivery of your goods and services.
5. Sales Order Management
Delay in processing any sales order can result in poor customer satisfaction. If entered manually, it can lead to errors, delays, and inconsistencies in order fulfillment. NetSuite order management is simplified with the aid of its unique features like automated order capture, order processing, and order fulfillment. As a result, it streamlines the order-to-cash process.
6. Warehouse Management
Inefficiency in handling warehouse operations is a primary result of delays and errors in order fulfillment. You may also experience increased costs in picking, packing, and shipping. This lack of visibility into inventory can result in suboptimal warehouse performance.
NetSuite SCM can boost warehouse operations, all thanks to its features like wave picking, bin management, and barcode scanning. As businesses can automate these processes, they can reduce delays in fulfillment.
7. Demand Planning
Wrong forecasting of upcoming demands for goods or services can result in excess inventory or stockouts. If you have a clear understanding of future demands, you may not struggle to maintain required inventory levels to meet customer expectations. Comes NetSuite SCM to the rescue. It offers advanced tools that use historical data and market trends to predict future requirements more accurately.
8. Production Planning
Poor planning of production requirements is one of the major causes of delays, shortages, and increased costs. Without proper planning and scheduling, businesses may struggle to meet customer demand and maintain production efficiency. NetSuite SCM helps organizations level up their production planning, minimizing production costs while meeting customer demand effectively.
9. Costing
Inaccuracies can lead to overpricing or underpricing of products. It can affect your ability to understand your organization’s production costs and profitability. By using the supply chain module of NetSuite, you can analyze production costs better. The tools can identify cost variances and structures to help you make profitable decisions.
1o. Reporting and Analytics
Lack of visibility into supply chain performance can hinder your decision-making skills and continuous improvement efforts. If you have timely actionable insights, you might not struggle to find opportunities for advancement. NetSuite’s reporting and analytics module offers real-time visibility into supply chain performance. You can also customize its dashboards and KPIs, to monitor key metrics accurately.
What are the Benefits of NetSuite Supply Chain Management?
Now that we’ve explored the features, let’s discuss the benefits of NetSuite supply chain management for businesses:
- Faster Time to Value: Implementing NetSuite SCM can lead to quicker ROI by streamlining various key processes.
- Improved Visibility and Control: You can gain real-time visibility into your entire supply chain. Thus, it allows better control over your business.
- Enhanced Collaboration: This module can make business operations smoother by helping you collaborate seamlessly with suppliers, distributors, and other partners.
- Increased Efficiency: One of the best benefits of NetSuite supply chain management is it automates manual tasks. Reduced errors can improve the efficiency of your business.
- Cost Savings: When you reduce the costs for inventory holding or optimize decisions for order procurements, you save a lot of money.
Challenges That NetSuite Supply Chain Management Solves
As explained before NetSuite supply chain modules can streamline various essential operations. Consecutively, they help an organization solve multiple issues. Take a look at how they resolve those challenges:
1. Stock Outs
Stockouts occur when businesses run out of stock of a particular product, leading to unfulfilled customer orders. This does damage customer relationships. It can occur due to inaccurate demand forecasting, which causes inefficient inventory management, as explained above.
NetSuite supply chain may prevent stockouts by providing advanced inventory management tools. With its ability to offer real-time visibility into inventory levels, you can accurately forecast demand and fulfill customer demands effectively. Additionally, automated features ensure timely inventory stocks to maintain product availability.
2. Production Delays
Delays in production occur when manufacturing processes are disrupted. It can happen due to various factors like equipment breakdowns or raw material shortages. Supply chain by NetSuite addresses production delays by smoothening production planning and scheduling processes.
3. Inconsistent Quality
Inconsistencies in product quality can damage a company’s reputation, which can cause customer dissatisfaction. It might also result in lost sales opportunities. As there are variations in manufacturing processes and raw materials, these inconsistencies may occur. But, not anymore with NetSuite supply chain management. It helps ensure consistent product quality throughout with its integrated quality management features.
Industries That Benefit From NetSuite Supply Chain Management
Many businesses across various industries can apply NetSuite SCM in their processes, including:
- Retail
- Manufacturing
- Distribution
- E-commerce
- Wholesale
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How Much Does NetSuite Supply Chain Management Cost?
The cost of NetSuite supply chain management varies depending on various factors. Such as the size of your business, the number of users, and the modules you require. It is typically offered as a subscription-based service with pricing tailored to individual business needs.
Why Consider NetSuite SCM Mobile Application?
The NetSuite SCM mobile application allows businesses to access key supply chain information anytime, anywhere, from their device. It can help you stay informed even when you’re on the go. This ensures you can make timely decisions and respond quickly to changing business needs. You can use authentic sources to understand NetSuite SCM Mobile capabilities even further.
NetSuite Supply Chain Management Case Studies
In 2023, a leading consumer electronics manufacturer faced significant challenges managing its supply chain operations. The company was facing problems with inventory inaccuracies as well as production delays. It led to customer dissatisfaction and affected organizations’ profits. To address these challenges, our NetSuite experts recommended they implement NetSuite supply chain management in the system.
Being a reliable NetSuite supply chain integration partner, we offered them reliable solutions. With our tactics, the company was able to align its production schedules with demand forecasts and resource availability. We also helped reduce stockouts by 40%. Moreover, they also witnessed a decrease in excess inventory costs by 30%.
NetSuite Supply Chain Management Best Practices
No matter how fast and before-time you implement NetSuite supply chain management processes, it’ll be of no worth if you do not continue to follow some standard practices. Some of them include:
- Use advanced inventory management features like real-time inventory tracking, automated replenishment, and bin management.
- Implement cycle counting to prevent discrepancies in inventory.
- Maximize the value of demand planning.
- Educate your team about ongoing trends.
- Take full advantage of NetSuite’s outsourced manufacturing.
- Integrate and collaborate with trading partners.
- Leverage NetSuite’s analytics and reporting to gain actionable insights into supply chain performance.
- Make the most use of official NetSuite resources.
Final Thought
In conclusion, NetSuite Supply Chain Management System (SCMS) helps businesses in many ways. It helps them overcome challenges such as stockouts, production delays, and inconsistent quality. All thanks to SCMS capabilities to predict demand, plan production, and control quality control. If you take full advantage of these features, you can transform your supply chain operations 360 degrees. Not only your organization will improve its efficiency but also have more satisfied customers.
Are you still facing problems while implementing NetSuite Supply Chain Management? If so, contact our NetSuite experts to get immediate help. Our professionals have years of experience in helping businesses grow with NetSuite. Trust us, we can help you in the same way.
