As more and more businesses are stepping into the world of e-commerce to become globally accessible, the need for warehousing and distribution is also increasing. Instead of investing in in-house warehousing solutions, most businesses are collaborating with some of the largest warehouse companies out there.
Contracting out your products’ warehousing comes with an unmatched competitive edge and allows your employees to focus on the core activities. Here are some more reasons that encourage outsourcing of storage in all industries.
- Gives Business moreflexibility to Scale and Shift
Using the services of a third-partywarehousing provider doesn’t confine the scale of your operations to the size of the warehouse. With another facility handling your warehousing, you can grow big and scale your business to deal with more demands. Plus, you can take your business to newer markets without much ado.
Here are some ways outsourcing makes business flexible:
- Flexibility in Supply Chain
- Flexibility in Transportation Network
- Flexibility within the warehousing facility
Warehousing providers have a team of seasoned professionals. The latter know how to manage the inventory depending upon the demand shifts, align the distribution network, and synchronize the stocks at all levels in the supply chain.
- Value Addition Activities
Various activities such as packaging, repackaging, assembly, and kitting add value to the product, and they are taken care of by warehousing providers.
If your company has launched a new offer which provides shampoo bottles with conditioner, you can rely on your warehousing providers to prepare kits of the two products and repackage them. These are the promotional packaging services that occur at the last point before final deliveries since they can vary according to various geographical locations.
Another aspect to consider here is reverse logistics. This type of logistics comes into play when customers make a return because of damages in the product. The third-party warehousing services activate their return processing here and ensure that the product reaches the first warehouse and is inspected. Once checked, it can either be refurbished or discarded.
A value-added service that fruits and vegetable suppliers cannot survive without is cross-docking and order consolidation. For quicker delivery of goods to various locations, they are stacked on the outbound trucks as soon as they arrive at the warehouse. Plus, most products heading to the same destination are clubbed together for minimal waste of time.
- Deal with the Industry Experts
The above jobs of inventory management, repackaging, assembly, reverse logistics, and consolidation require as much expertise as any other aspect of the business. An organization can’t recruit all the experts at one go. Hence, you should outsource warehousing from 3rd party logistics who have employed experienced professionals to take care of these activities.
They know how to meet the demand by regulating the inflow of material even when they have multiple suppliers. All this is done to ensure the highest possible efficiency to reduce costs, save time involved, and increase productivity.
- At par with Innovative Solutions
Nowadays, bulk processing of orders has become a cumbersome task to be done manually. Therefore, various systems and software are employed by warehousing providers to keep track of everything. Some of these innovative techniques are Warehouse Management System (WMS), Transportation Management System (TMS), Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), and Electronic Data Interchange (EDI). All of them are technological aids that help warehouses process various information to keep the supply chain in check.
They try to ensure visibility through these software so that you have complete reports of inventory. You can use these reports to study the market and make forecasts about your future production goals. To take it up a notch, you can use the supply chain info to determine the markets which have high demands if you are looking to establish brick and mortar stores.
- Cost Saving
The most significant advantage of outsourcing the warehousing is that you do not have to develop a facility, saving you tons of money on rent, utilities, staffing, and more. Apart from this, increased efficiency of the third-party warehouses saves you a fortune too by:
- Ensuring the in-house staff better productivity as they can now focus on core activities of the business, such as product development and design, market research for potential markets, and more.
- The risk of waste also decreases when a team of experienced personnel handles operations.
- The experts know which mode of transportation can optimally serve a particular geographical location, reducing overseas shipping costs.
Having a fully integrated warehousing provide can prove miraculous for your business in terms of better efficiency and productivity, both at the front and back end. They maintain a flawless supply chain for you to ensure the proper flow of goods to meet market demand. The better your business can meet demand, earlier you deliver the products, more prominent will be your customer base.
