A myriad of things can go wrong in the time between a customer’s purchase and delivery. Even the slightest human error, like the wrong letter or number on an order, could disrupt the entire process and put the company’s reputation at stake. Thankfully, with technological advances and supply chain management solutions, businesses no longer have to rely on outdated methods. They can leverage order fulfillment software to track their inventory, invoicing, billing and shipments.

Compare Top Supply Chain Management Software Leaders

According to a report, the global multichannel order management software market is expected to grow from $2.7 billion in 2022 to $4.2 billion by 2027 at a 9.4% CAGR. This growth points towards a single fact — if you don’t digitize your fulfillment operations in this modern ecosystem, you’ll be left behind.

Table of Contents

• What Is Order Fulfillment Software?
• Primary Benefits
• Best Order Fulfillment Software
  • SAP Supply Chain
  • Oracle SCM Cloud
  • Sage Business Cloud X3
  • Manhattan Supply Chain
  • Blue Yonder
• Key Features To Consider
• Questions To Ask
• FAQs
• Next Steps

What Is Order Fulfillment Software?

Order fulfillment software is a comprehensive platform to manage the entire fulfillment cycle from order entry to packing and shipping items to customers’ doorsteps. It lets you manage inventory from a centralized dashboard and streamlines order routing based on smart rules. With order fulfillment solutions, companies benefit from reduced errors in order entry, automated invoices, increased order visibility, managed returns and more. Typically, you can find order fulfillment functionality as part of a larger supply chain management system.

Primary Benefits

Global supply chains are facing big challenges in 2022, even though the pandemic has almost waned off. Trade frictions, supply and labor shortages, Russia – Ukraine conflict, and environmental sustainability issues are forcing businesses worldwide to rethink their operations and build resilient supply chains that can stand the test of time.

One of the primary steps while preparing for this future is to create digital supply chain twins that can increase visibility, promote accountability and enhance customer experience.

Order management is one of the most critical processes in a supply chain that can benefit from digitization. It involves the last touchpoints of the chain dealing directly with customers, and even small disruptions can make or break your business.

We’ve listed a few of the many benefits of implementing order fulfillment solutions:

• Improved Inventory Oversight: The top benefit of an order management solution is that it always provides accurate and real-time inventory statuses no matter which channel you sell from. This ensures you never run out of stock and eliminates long paper processes.
• Cost Reduction and Time-saving: A digitized ordering portal expedites every sales deal by allowing recurring customers to save their contact information and providing automated order forms to sales associates. You can also save time by automating bookkeeping. This time-saving translates into monetary savings in the form of reduced labor expenditures and accounting costs.
• Enhanced Customer Experience: You can automate tax and shipping cost calculation for accurate quotes and generate instant invoices when a customer checks out. Customers can use the portal to view your catalog, save preferences, track orders and provide feedback. The solution acts as a fishing net for your primary customer data and lets you analyze it to deliver hyper-personalized experiences.
• Faster Fulfillments: Order fulfillment software eliminates the need for rekeying information after taking an order. It directly sends orders to warehouses, updates inventory levels and prepares packages for shipping. This substantially reduces the order-to-shipping time, leading to faster fulfillment and happy customers.

But how do you know which order fulfillment software is right for your business? We’ve prepared a list of the best systems in the market to help you on your selection journey:

Compare Top Supply Chain Management Software Leaders

Best Order Fulfillment Software

Although every business will have specific requirements when it comes to SCM software, there are a few systems that stand out for their order processing capabilities. According to our analyst team, the following five vendors have the best-rated order fulfillment and processing functionality. As these are well-established and popular providers, make sure to strongly consider them during your software selection process:

SAP Supply Chain

In addition to being a top vendor in order management and fulfillment software, SAP is also a fantastic SCM solution overall. SAP rates highly across all business requirements, is number one on our SCM Leaderboard and includes pretty much all you could want in SCM software. During order processing, SAP is with you every step of the way. This system helps users plan their processes, execute orders and manage order closing activities.

Track inventory and avoid stock-outs and backorders.

With the SAP Global Track and Trace feature, you can access the fulfillment status of all items and their processes. You can configure alerts to include order location, intended route, humidity, temperature and other unique factors. It helps you analyze the level of financial impact an issue might cause and how you can resolve it.

Furthermore, you can make decisions with the confidence that you can carry them out using the most reliable and up-to-the-minute data. In cloud deployment, each user has access to the most up-to-date set of information, which fosters collaboration — a key asset for larger companies with many working parts. However, we don’t recommend this system for small businesses.

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Oracle SCM Cloud

Oracle strives to reduce the errors associated with order processing known to degrade reputation with a number of different order-related applications. With their Global Order Promising (GOP) feature, you can more dependably inform your customers when their favorite products will be available. GOP analyzes supply and demand to precisely determine the date of delivery. The system can also assign shipments to several categories, including Available to Promise, Capable to Promise and Capable to Deliver.

Organize order data coming through multiple sales channels.

The system provides intelligent algorithms for assigning the best warehouse and delivery method for each order. When your stock is running low, it takes into account future supply estimates to determine tentative delivery dates.

It supports eCommerce storefronts, EDI, XML and telesales, allowing you to analyze and gain visibility into demand from multiple sources. You can also set unique pricing rules for specific channels, locations and customer segments. The Oracle order management module works best when integrated with the transportation management tool, providing visibility into the entire fulfillment chain.

Compare Top Supply Chain Management Software Leaders

Sage Business Cloud X3

Sage ERP X3, or Sage Business Cloud Enterprise Management, goes above and beyond when it comes to fulfillment management software. But before choosing this option, make sure you’ve thought about whether your company is in the market for an ERP with SCM functions or an SCM standalone product.

Even though it’s an ERP, its exceptional sales order processing capabilities are what earn it a spot on this list. Sage has got you covered on everything from invoices to deliveries. This system also contains eCommerce functionalities that allow you to build a brand identity, all while processing orders at full capability.

Design business strategies for order and fulfillment workflows.

Sage supports both B2B and B2C eCommerce storefronts. You can set custom pricing for B2B customers and offer them portals to view the catalog, receive updates and pay invoices. The mobile-optimized B2C interface lets you connect with popular shipping providers like UPS, FedEx and USPS for easy fulfillment.

It’s suitable for small businesses, but the only drawback is that it lacks transportation management tools and doesn’t offer visibility into the last mile of the fulfillment chain.

Compare Top Supply Chain Management Software Leaders

Manhattan Supply Chain

Manhattan supply chain offers an extensive range of supply chain solutions, but this vendor is especially good at providing solutions that support order processing. First, Manhattan Associates’ Order Management feature captures order information from multiple channels but relays them to the user from a centralized interface. This reduces redundancies across your system. You can edit orders in addition to seeing an audit trail of every last edit.

Reduce redundancies across systems with a centralized interface.

You can set up milestones throughout the order journey, and if any of them isn’t triggered, you’ll know where exactly the issue arose. It lets you track inventory from a unified dashboard and create procurement and sourcing rules per market demand.

The software predicts outages and common delivery problems, helping you prevent customer service issues and unforeseen circumstances.

Compare Top Supply Chain Management Software Leaders

Blue Yonder

Blue Yonder from JDA is designed with mid-sized businesses in mind. It’s useful for those that have goals concurrent with larger firms but don’t have as much time or resources to accomplish them. JDA understands the need for businesses to minimize risk while keeping costs as low as possible. Their software takes all this into account and maximizes revenue to ensure the opportunity to grow.

Track key metrics and drill down on opportunities with Blue Yonder.

JDA utilizes the intelligent fulfillment suite to integrate with IoT and autonomous machinery, allowing you to track the entire fulfillment cycle from a dashboard. It also offers you supply chain visibility to resolve issues at the source. For instance, users can access demand estimates and warehouse capacity to understand how replenishment could affect an order.

JDA also lets you define custom rules to prioritize customers or products when working with limited resources.

Compare Top Supply Chain Management Software Leaders

Key Features

Although the products above are very highly rated, it’s entirely possible that none of them would be the best choice for your business. Whether it’s due to price, company size or its features, no product is one-size-fits-all. Should that be the case for your business, it’s important to know which features make a particular software solution useful when it comes to order fulfillment. Here are a few of the features to look for when shopping for an order fulfillment service solution:

Cloud-based

While some businesses still prefer on-premise software solutions, the possibilities of real-time tracking and analytics that come with cloud-based solutions have massive potential for making your order processing more efficient. Businesses find that the benefits of cloud-based inventory management solutions are just impossible to ignore.

Integrations

The order fulfillment software you choose should be able to integrate itself easily with your existing systems. Alternatively, it could be part of a broader solution that goes beyond order fulfillment, like an ERP. In that case, you might even consider adopting new, more compatible systems to use with your ERP instead of the other way around. There’s no reason why your staff should enter customer information once into your SCM, once into your CRM and again into any other system you use customer data with.

Order Management

Quickly entering and sorting through your orders is essential, so the software should have a convenient approach to doing that. The downside to many extensive SCM software solutions is that they’re hard to use. You can solve this problem with an investment in training and customer support. However, you could also put user experience first and adopt an intuitive system. Many of today’s solutions are even adopting consumer-grade UX, making this task easier than ever.

Use consumer-grade interfaces to quickly swift through orders.

Inventory Alerts

A crucial feature of order fulfillment software is its ability to alert you to any abnormal changes in inventory. The sooner you know about a shortage or an issue with capacity, the sooner you can address it. These can be configured to suit the user’s preference and can be accessed on any mobile device if your business is utilizing a cloud-based product.

Returns

A comprehensive order fulfillment solution should have an efficient way to confirm and process returns. Although you may consider an order fulfilled when it reaches the customer, your business’s relationship continues on after. Make sure you can process inbound shipments just as well as outbound. This will also save your business time and money, as you’ll have a more accurate record of the stock that’s available on hand for future orders.

Reports and Analytics

Finally, you should look at the data and analytics that SCM software is able to provide you. This can go a long way in making your order fulfillment process more productive. For instance, analytics may unlock trends and patterns related to fulfillment delays, depending on the key performance indicators (KPIs) you configure within your system.

You might wish to see trends concerning transportation, warehousing or order processing itself. Analytics can also predict trends in demand. This will help you foresee any stock shortages that may occur and create preemptive strategies to deal with these issues.

Identify patterns, find opportunities and unlock trends.

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Questions To Ask

Choosing the right order fulfillment solution for your company doesn’t have to be a tricky business. Asking the right questions can help you prioritize your requirements and identify implementation goals the new system must achieve. Here are a few model questions you can use to start your journey:

• What are your products and their customizations? You need a fulfillment solution that can handle all your product bundles and taxonomies and accurately register each order.
• Who are your customers? If you’re a B2B business, you’d need a solution that can manage unique quotes for each order and allow customers to negotiate and accept bids.
• Do you require time-based billing? If you have a subscription-based business model, look for a fulfillment solution to automate recurring billings.
• How do you procure products? If you’re a manufacturer, choose a platform that notifies you about inventory levels and helps maintain stock. On the other hand, if you acquire products from external manufacturers, you need a smart platform that automatically submits purchase orders when inventory is low.
• What’s your return workflow? Look for solutions that can not only handle your return and refund workflows but also automate the entire process.
• Which other software needs integrations with the platform, now and in the future? Pretty self-explanatory. Select an order fulfillment solution that connects with your software stack and minimizes the need for manual data entry.

FAQs

What is sales fulfillment?

Sales or order fulfillment is the procedure through which a business processes a sales order according to customer specifications, packs the product and ships it to customers’ doorsteps. It spans the entire process starting from order confirmation to the final delivery of goods and everything in between.

What does a fulfillment company do?

A fulfillment company is a third-party logistics provider that external businesses can outsource for order fulfillment. They offer warehousing, order processing, picking-and-packing and shipping capabilities. Some companies even provide return management modules for dealing with canceled and returned orders.

Businesses can leverage these services to focus on growth and problem-solving instead of in-house warehousing, shipping and returns management.

What software do fulfillment companies use?

Every business has unique needs, so the choice of preferred software varies from company to company. If you’re looking to implement order fulfillment software and are confused about which features you need the most, check our article on key requirements of supply chain management.

What is the best fulfillment software for small businesses?

Our analyst team has identified the top six order fulfillment solutions for small businesses:

• ShipBob
• ShipMonk
• Shipwire
• BizAutomation
• Fishbowl Inventory
• Brightpearl

For further analysis, you can check our in-depth Supply Chain Management Comparison Report, which details the top vendors and how well they provide popular features.

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Next Steps

These five solutions are some of the best order fulfillment software on the market. But what about all the other features included in SCM software suites? It’s important to have a well-rounded system so that your company can get the most for what you’re paying for. In addition to order fulfillment, consider how well prospective vendors perform when it comes to transportation, supply chain collaboration, sourcing and other top SCM requirements.

Make sure to check out our SCM software comparison, which lists the top ten vendors and ranks them by how well they fulfill popular requirements as determined by our analyst team.

What do you hope to improve regarding your order fulfillment processes? Let us know by leaving a comment below!