Businesses in the supply chain need to take a modern approach to labelling processes or risk falling behind their rivals, and many businesses are turning to cloud-based solutions to do this, as Paul Vogt, Loftware VP Partner Strategies, explains.
Companies of all sizes are accelerating investment in new digital strategies for their business-critical supply chain labelling operations. The supply chain runs on the barcode label and without it, the supply chain will fail. So, companies recognise the importance of getting it right the first time.
Streamlined supply chain labelling is one of those ‘must-have’ business issues. Without a modern approach to your labelling processes, you can’t tackle the big business issues of inflationary pressures, raw material shortages and labour constraints.
Organisations are modernising their labelling to increase their flexibility and their capacity to collaborate effortlessly across various facilities and third-party entities. They need all labelling across suppliers to be consistent, efficient, and 100% compliant with customers’ requirements.
Modern software solutions that meet these requirements help to future-proof their businesses. With this in mind, organisations are looking to the cloud to lower upfront costs, enable easy access and increase their ability to scale.
Differentiate your business with the cloud
As part of this, channel partners can assist customers to transition to an innovative and reliable labelling platform, facilitate business transformation, and enhance the efficiency and organisation of these companies along the way.
A cloud-based labelling solution can help channel partners grow their business by unlocking opportunities and refreshing existing customers’ hardware. This not only enables channel partners to provide enhanced services to customers but also opens new possibilities. For instance, end users can delegate labelling tasks to the channel partner, granting secure access to previously unavailable services. These services encompass a wide spectrum, including compliance, validation, label design, application development and inventory management.
It’s no surprise, therefore, that we have seen a surge in interest in cloud labelling among channel partners – and it is a trend that is primarily driven by the impressive benefits on offer for their customers.
Virtual collaboration tool
When it comes to labelling, a cloud-based solution serves as a virtual collaboration platform, allowing channel partners to showcase, market, and tailor labelling solutions for customers no matter their location.
This solution enables channel partners to engage with customers in real-time screen sharing sessions, collaborate on label template design and approval, access label and form designs via web browsers, empower customers to remotely manage their labelling processes, oversee customer applications and automatically replenish supplies by tracking their inventory.
The cloud ensures precision
By integrating with a single source of truth and product data, the cloud ensures precision and mitigates the risk of mislabelling. This integration guarantees that labelling information remains consistent and up to date across all channels, reducing errors and enhancing overall accuracy in product labelling processes, which can save an organisation money, brand reputation and valuable resources.
When looking to cooperate better with multiple sites or facilitate remote collaboration, businesses can benefit from a centralised cloud-based modern labelling solution, which allows users from any geography to instantly access accurate, compliant and up-to-date labelling content without needing to design new templates, saving partners valuable time and costs.
Less need for large IT teams
Cloud-based labelling solutions do not necessitate a substantial IT team or an unlimited budget. They offer automatic software updates and enable collaborative design, management, and printing. Moreover, they provide valuable insights, allowing trusted partners to monitor customers’ supplies and usage for business growth. Importantly, these activities can occur independently of the traditional IT department.
The future lies in the cloud
The pandemic transformed how resellers approach their sales and labelling strategies. Prior to the pandemic, most resellers in the labelling sector relied heavily on a face-to-face business approach for selling and supporting their labelling solutions. However, customer engagement is shifting online, necessitating resellers to adopt more virtual collaborative tools for meetings, pilots and demonstrations. Resellers now have the opportunity to manage the entire process remotely and securely, and this includes live demos, label template design and testing, solution deployment, label printing and inventory management. Access to collaborative cloud tools is essential for this to happen seamlessly.
Cloud-based solutions offer an attractive avenue for organisations seeking to fortify their operations, with benefits including lower upfront costs, ease of access, and scalability. Channel partners stand at the forefront of this digital transformation, offering their customers the opportunity to transition to a modern, powerful and reliable labelling platform.
