Part three: Operational Excellence in the Convenience Economy

This is part two of a series about the Convenience economy. Read part one and two. 

Having a commerce business in the convenience economy comes with many operational challenges. To keep up with customer expectations, the buying experience needs to be as seamless as possible.

As discussed in the previous blogs this means that retailers need to invest in sales in multiple channels, and focus on product management, order management, inventory management, fulfillment, customer service, and much more, at the same time.

But how to manage all these operations efficiently? Are there solutions out there that can manage commerce in the convenience economy? In the last part of this blog series, we would like to introduce you to the Digital Operations Platform.

Operational Challenges

Keeping up with many different operations at once can be a challenge. Often various operations are managed in different systems. For example, product information is handled in a spreadsheet, while orders are separately managed in the webshop and marketplaces, warehouse managers work with their own WMS, while customer service tries to get information from various sources to help answer customer questions.

This leads to very inefficient operational management, which is not only frustrating to your employees but also hinders you to offer a seamless buying experience to your customers.

Solution: Unifying Operations

The only way to offer a great customer experience is by unifying back office operations. This means that all back office processes such as sales, inventory, customers, products, fulfillment, etc. – need to be available in a single source. It calls for specialized back office systems that allow full visibility into all processes. This approach ensures a high level of consistency and continuity which seamlessly guides customers through their purchase journey.

Digital Operations Platform

A Digital Operations Platform allows merchants to manage back office operations by unifying them into a single view. It gives your business what it needs most: a flexible solution in which operations are easy to manage, in which your employees can work together, and which – most importantly – allows for great customer experiences.

Unifying Operations

The key goal of a DOP is to unify processes that are needed to optimize back office operations. A DOP integrates with key elements in your commerce strategy, such as sales channels and warehouses. It receives and sends out data about orders, inventory, customers, fulfillment, and much more.

From non-unified to unified back office operations.

A Central Platform for all Teams

A DOP gives your teams one unified space to handle the operations they are responsible for. Your sales team will be able to manage sales from multiple channels, both online and offline –  your warehouse managers will be able to follow and manage each inventory mutation  – and your customer service team will have insights into information such as order statuses and previous communications.

An Optimal Customer Experience

A DOP will be key to optimizing your customer experience. It will enable you to offer all the services they are looking for (as mentioned above). This will help you form better relationships with your customers and give them all they expect from a modern-day omnichannel commerce business.

Flexible, Scalable, Future Proof

Even though a DOP will help you to centralize business processes, it will never replace all systems within your company. Nonetheless, it does structure organizational cohesion. DOPs are designed to move with the pace of modern business, due to the flexible and scalable architecture. Unlike legacy systems, DOPs allow for easy scaling by adding new channels, incorporating new third-party software, and changing back office strategies if needed.

About Marello

Marello is a Digital Operations Platform for B2C and B2B commerce. It offers a flexible solution that allows you to sell on any channel while unifying your back office operations. With Marello, (e)commerce businesses extend their capabilities with comprehensive Order Management, Inventory Management, Product Management, Customer Management, and more.

If you’d like to know more, don’t hesitate to reach out. We’d be happy to take a look at how a DOP will benefit your business.