4 Things Your Promotional Products Software Should Do

IS YOUR PROMOTIONAL PRODUCTS SOFTWARE HELPING YOU GROW?

The promotional products business can be difficult to manage and it takes a lot of effort to deliver an order. There are always too many people and too many processes involved in one order, and that means the chances of an order getting wrong are plenty. Incorporating an easy-to-use promotional products software is crucial for the success of both promotional products suppliers and distributors. That’s why we sat down and pounded out 4 things to look for in business management software for promotional products distributors.

SIMPLIFY

The promotional products industry is notorious for having multiple, patchwork, systems in use for distributors. You know what I'm talking about, Word documents filled with links to supplier websites, excel files where information is manually copied and updated throughout the sales cycle, and stacks upon stacks of printouts, folders, and faxes filled with product, pricing, and order information. So, the first thing your promotional product software should do is simplify your process. It should combine (or completely replace) varied and disparate systems into one cohesive unit, for your whole business. There are a lot of niche products out there that focus on one part of the system, such as sales, data entry, or order management - go for one system to manage everything. A modern software platform should eliminate duplication of work and streamline the process.

ENCOURAGE COLLABORATION

Any modern promotional products software should have collaboration cooked into it because social software is here to stay. Teamwork, idea sourcing, and staying connected are powerful ways that promotional products distributors and suppliers can fight commoditization. In-person meetings are great if you're lucky enough to gather all of your staff together at the same time, but collaboration in the promotional products industry needs to go beyond external collaboration. Bringing the entire supply chain together -- distributors and suppliers -- for as much of the process as possible is an important step to solidifying the future of our industry and offering a seamless, positive experience to end-users. Distributors constantly tell clients that we can provide better service if they bring us into their promo buying process earlier. Well, it's time for us to heed our own advice and buy into deeper relationships with our own suppliers.

PROVIDE FREEDOM

The Millennial Generation is changing the face of business. Millennials have grown up with technology usage of computers, laptops, tablets, cell phones, smartphones, email, and social networks as part of their DNA. They don't remember the clicking and beeping of a dial-up connection, they might not even remember when you needed a wire for internet access. They are used to mobility and freedom and are changing the workplace because of their expectations. These workers are also used to out-of-the-box software solutions that provide them exact interaction with the places and people that matter most to them. Their business software needs to be equally accessible and ubiquitous. Millennials are the custom generation. They want a custom tool for every need and the ability to use it from anywhere with equal ease. This video will help you understand how the software should work with you instead of the software working against you.

FOCUS ON DATA

Data is talked about so much nowadays that it's become a generic word. There's too much data in the world and not enough context. Modern business software needs to focus on managing and serving up the right kind of data. For sales, it needs to offer customer data and interaction as well as pricing and product data. For admins, it needs to offer real-time aggregated information because that can mean the difference between making an event date or missing it. For management, it needs to tell you if you're making a quota or not. The ability of everyone in your organization to access the data that's valuable to them is one of the most important aspects of modern business software. This could probably be a number five, but I'll just comment briefly on making sure your software is adaptable. Moving to subscription-based, cloud software allows for more frequent updates, quicker product enhancements, and overall product improvements. So, you'll want to keep that in mind too.

Every department needs to stay on top of its numbers and track them regularly. On top of that, the reports need to talk to each other, otherwise, the context will get lost, and you may miss out on some important insights. People love well-made reports but making them can be a difficult task. Great software does this efficiently and effortlessly. Is the software you are using is doing all this? To make the comparison a little bit easier, watch this 3-minute video that will help you compare your software better.