Disruptions in your supply chain can be detrimental to other processes. Imagine your product procurement being delayed and a surge of orders gush in. You’re left with a textbook example of stockout.
That is what happens when you don’t use supply chain management software. Without one, you’re like a footballer trying to play with two sprained ankles. Imagine how hurtful and if anything, how slow you’d be.
Hence, today, we’ve put together a small compilation of ten of the best supply chain management software to help your online store run faster than everyone else on the playing field. Let’s take a look!
What is a Supply Chain Management (SCM) Software?
A supply chain management tool is a solution that offers a lot of functionalities to manage the overall flow of goods — from the moment of sourcing from manufacturers to the moment of shipping to the end recipient. These supply chain management software solutions also offer features, so brands can maintain good relationships with their customers and suppliers.
In a nutshell, a supply chain management system is more or less likely an all-in-one solution that efficiently handles the entire flow of goods to improve your workflow and customer experience.
Top 10 Supply Chain Management Software [2024 Updated List]
To make things easier for you, we’ve gone over every tool’s overview, role in supply chain management, and its top features that will help you create a top-notch solution.
1. ClickPost
ClickPost is a comprehensive logistics software solution platform that can also be used as a supply chain management software due to its vast features. From connecting with carriers and customers to keeping tabs on all shipping processes, the software provides a wide range of services that you can use to gain visibility in your supply chain.
Multi-carrier connectivity further enables your store to ship with 500+ carriers and use the most cost-effective option for every package. Apart from handling shipments, ClickPost also helps you resolve NDR and return orders using dedicated dashboards for each. These directly help you reduce logistics costs, improve your bottom line, and maintain a high customer satisfaction rate.
Provides machine learning-based carrier allocation to help you ship with the most efficient option for each parcel.
Allows you to create branded tracking pages and provide customers with real-time tracking data.
Offers analytical data for multiple supply chain operations such as shipping, pre-dispatch reports, returns, and failed deliveries.
Automates order manifestation using a single shipping API to place orders, generate AWBs, and request a pick-up.
2. SAP
The second pick for the list is SAP, an enterprise resource planning platform that provides dedicated supply chain management software. Using this, businesses can link their supply chain operations together and create a feedback loop to keep improving their current processes.
In fact, you also have the ability to manage your inventory and ship using multiple courier partners. Automated warehousing further enables you to delegate warehouse activities like picking and packing quickly.
Explore how SAP can further boost your supply chain management efficiency with these features:
Offers real-time calculations for a product’s development and design cost to help you learn how profitable it is for your business.
Enables businesses to integrate their shipping activities on the cloud for more secure control of monitoring activities.
Provides real-time track and trace for freights and displays which shipments are on schedule and delayed.
Allows you to analyze your supply chain’s carbon footprint to reduce unwanted emissions via planning resource expenditure.
3. Shippabo
Shippabo is another software online stores can use to optimize their logistics. However, this tool emphasizes more on providing in-depth visibility into your supply chain processes.
Mainly developing in the retail, manufacturing, and wholesale industries, Shippabo also allows you to ship large goods via freight.
Businesses can choose from air, ocean, or road freight forwarding services and avail of additional services like customs clearance assistance and insurance. With real-time tracking services, you can further check the status of any pallet within a couple of clicks.
Shippabo also provides these services to help you simplify your supply chain visibility needs:
Consolidates all courier partners in one platform to help you streamline communication between them and your internal team.
Uses predictive intelligence to provide key metrics along with a shipment map that shows all your domestic and international parcels simultaneously.
Displays multiple tags for packages that are on schedule and delayed to let you take action at the right time.
Separates all your shipping, customs, and booking costs for better supply chain budgeting.
4. Magaya
At its core, Magaya serves businesses as a digital freight management software. However, its supply chain management suite allows you to handle various operations under one roof. Right from getting a freight quote to last-mile logistics, you can manage all delivery processes.
The platform also provides a dedicated WMS (warehouse management software) with automated replenishment to prevent stockouts.
Further, you also gain the ability to automate converting POs (purchase orders) into pickup orders or warehouse receipts to help your team work faster and initiate pick and pack immediately.
Below are four extra features of Magaya that help you optimize your supply chain:
Provides in-depth visibility for shipped items and lets your accounting team validate different costs across multiple currencies.
Manages all supply chain processes on the cloud to provide you with a more scalable, secure, and cost-effective solution.
Offers integrations with modern-day applications to enable smooth communication between Magaya and other platforms you use.
Displays real-time information on your inventory, freight partners, shipments, and other metrics in one place.
5. Anvyl
The last software on our list is Anvyl. This is another data analytics platform that helps you see and manage all first-mile logistics processes. A holistic dashboard provides multiple data reports like your suppliers’ performance.
Anvyl also allows switching the mode of transport mid-transit to enable split shipments and provides seamless communication with carriers for the same.
Here’s a few extra perks of having Anvyl as part of your supply chain management strategy:
Automatically sends check-in emails pre and post-production of your goods to keep you updated.
Creates important financial reports to display all your annual supply chain costs and suppliers involved.
Sends automated milestone notifications to alert users of potential delays in a specific shipment.
Allows team members to upload important documents like invoices and bills of lading for quick access.
6. FreightPoP
FreightPoP is basically a Transportation Management (TMS) system at its core. FreightPoP will help you track and manage your shipments, compare shipping costs, customize shipments, etc. In addition, it’ll help you plan your monthly shipments and negotiate shipping rates.
To help you better strategize the entire supply chain process, it provides detailed analytics of your operations.
Furthermore, freight planning, freight audit, and predictive analytics are some additional functionalities it offers under its feature package.
Here are other key benefits provided by FreightPoP:-
Provided an integrated dashboard, where businesses can generate necessary documents, bills of lading (BOL), shipping labels, etc on the go
Enables you to monitor shipments
Offers simple integrations1500+ carriers, OMS, and CRM solutions
You can handle parcel and freight loads via its SmartPOOL distribution functionality.
Helps in freight invoice auditing
7. NetSuite
NetSuite will help you maintain the smooth production of goods, strategically assign resources, and boost customer relationships.
It will provide you with an integrated portal, where you can store every type of information(like production data, financial reports, inventory information, and customer orders) to avoid future discrepancies.
Not only for supply chain planning, businesses can also use this solution to execute those plans.
For example, it offers a mobile tracking option to improve data accuracy during product manufacturing, and records labor and scrap usage in real time. In fact, it also offers an option to inspect product quality.
Take a look at some other key highlights of NetSuite’s supply chain management solution:
Helps in supply chain planning with its scheduling engine and predictive analytics
Manages inventory level in an efficient way to improve customer experience and optimize production costs
Helps maintain a smooth communication flow and share production plans within teams
Accelerates product development through a seamless ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system integration
Enables you to manage the subcontracted manufacturing process
8. Acumatica
With Acumatica’s supply chain management software, brands will be able to automate the entire events, manage the entire order fulfillment process, and lower the costs related to shipping.
It also has an in-built WMS solution. Via this system, you can take care of all warehouse operations, like sorting, order processing, and so on with ease.
Acumatica offers real-time visibility to existing inventory, inventory in transit, reorder quantities, and inventory costs. It also helps with inventory replenishment and plan distribution requirements.
To help you decide on profitability, it lets you know the real costs of every nitty-gritty factor of the supply chain process.
Besides, Acumatica also offers other supply chain management facilities. Below we have mentioned a few of them.
Offers omnichannel selling capabilities to strengthen your business reach in new markets
Improves customers’ loyalty by providing them with self-service access to various details like account details, inventory availability, automated shipment notifications, etc
Manages sales orders and simplifies cross-company transactions
Organizes purchasing with attribute-based matrix items
9. IBM
With the sole purpose of making the supply chain method more efficient and sustainable, IBM has launched a dedicated supply chain management solution.
This solution has further categorized its functionalities into multiple sections to take care of every aspect of the supply chain process.
These include Supply Chain Intelligent suite, Order Management, Intelligent Promising, CPQ ( Configure, Price, Quote) software, and so on.
Under the Supply Chain Intelligent suite, you’ll find a bunch of options that will reduce shipping time and maintain sustainability.
As the name suggests, IBM’s Order Management service has the capability to manage the whole order fulfillment process and facilitate omnichannel logistics activities.
To help businesses improve customers’ shopping experience and establish brand loyalty in this competitive market, IBM has come up with the Intelligent Promising functionality.
Now, if you want to optimize product pricing, you can surely invest in its CPQ option.
That’s not all! IBM also offers more supply chain management solutions. Take a look at them:
Provides one centralized platform to offer end-to-end visibility into inventory
Reduces costs due to efficient supply chain planning
Helps in real-time inventory management
Enables multi-channel fulfillment approach, including curbside pickup, Buy Online Pickup In-store (BOPIS), etc.
10. Precoro
Last but definitely not least, we have Precoro. It mainly focuses on improving vendor management tasks for businesses.
For example, to help you onboard verified manufacturers, it offers solutions such as custom vendor onboarding forms. It also offers solutions, like automated information capturing from important documents, granular-level visibility into supply-related activities, etc.
At the same time, you can order items, generate PO ( Purchase Orders), create vendor agreements, and maintain smooth communication with vendors – all within the Precoro platform.
Plus, it gives you solutions to track and analyze item management and budgeting.
You can also take a look at other benefits offered by Precoro:
Gives you full control over all your orders, so you can deliver products to customers on time
Automates the vendor onboarding process
Helps you store supplier catalogs
Provides real-time analytics into supplier data
Helps you manage the vendor invoices
How Does a Supply Chain Management Software Exactly Help Businesses?
That’s a pretty fair question for any online store owner who wants to streamline their supply chain processes with technology. Put simply, supply chain management software lets you handle the majority (if not all) of processes such as communicating with suppliers, forecasting demand, warehousing, and shipping.
These tools can actually be pretty overwhelming due to the abundant features they possess and the amount of processes they let you manage.
However, once you get the gist of it, using one won’t be difficult. Businesses can also keep track of their inventory and shipments in real-time to provide timely updates to customers.
Conclusion
And that’s it! In this article, we’ve provided our unbiased opinions on each tool and listed some of their leading features. We hope our list has given you an idea of the well-known supply chain management platforms available on the market.
However, don’t hurry while choosing a solution. It may cost you in the long run. First, lay down your business goals and evaluate exactly where you need improvement and support. Also, determine the budget you want to invest in a solution. Then only go for a tool that will suit you the best.
