Entries by Bizowie

WMS vs. ERP with Warehouse Management: What Distributors Actually Need

Your warehouse operations are straining under growth. Pick times are increasing, errors are creeping up, and your team is drowning in paper pick lists and manual processes. You know you need better warehouse management technology, but you face a fundamental decision that will shape your operations for years: invest in a standalone Warehouse Management System […]

Managing Foreign Currency Contracts: Protecting Margins in Global Distribution

Your European supplier sent the quote: €250,000 for a container of products with 60-day payment terms. At the exchange rate when you placed the order, that translated to $270,000—giving you comfortable margin when selling to U.S. customers at your standard pricing. You confirmed the order and began taking customer commitments. Sixty days later when payment […]

eCommerce Distribution: Managing High-Volume, Direct-to-Consumer Fulfillment

For decades, distribution followed a predictable pattern: large orders to business customers, pallet quantities, scheduled deliveries, and forgiving delivery windows. A typical B2B distributor might process 50 to 100 orders daily, each with 10 to 50 line items, shipping to commercial addresses with loading docks during business hours. Then ecommerce changed everything. Now that same […]

Wholesale Distribution to Retail Chains: Managing EDI and Retailer Requirements

The call from Walmart’s buyer was exactly what your distribution company had been working toward: a major purchase agreement that would triple your revenue overnight. After years of selling to independent retailers and regional chains, you’d finally landed a national account that would transform your business. Then came the 47-page routing guide. And the EDI […]

Data Migration for Distribution ERP: What to Bring, What to Archive, What to Leave Behind

The ERP implementation was progressing well until the data migration team opened the customer master file. What should have been 8,000 active customers turned out to be 23,000 records spanning 30 years—including customers who’d gone out of business a decade ago, duplicate entries for the same companies with slight name variations, addresses that were outdated […]

Testing Your Distribution ERP: Scenarios That Catch Problems Before Go-Live

The ERP implementation project was on schedule and seemingly on track. Configurations looked good in demonstrations. Integrations passed basic connectivity tests. Training was underway. Everyone was optimistic about the upcoming go-live. Then, three days after launch, reality struck. A customer returned a product, and the system crashed when processing the return credit. Inventory transfers between […]

ERP Implementation Checklist: 50 Critical Steps Distributors Can’t Afford to Skip

ERP implementation failures make headlines regularly. A distributor spends $500,000 and 18 months only to abandon the system and start over. Another goes live with critical functionality missing, forcing expensive emergency fixes. A third successfully implements technically but sees user adoption collapse within months because change management was an afterthought. The statistics are sobering: studies […]

Building a High-Performance Distribution Culture: Beyond Systems to the People Who Drive Success

Two distribution companies operate in the same market, carry similar products, use comparable technology, and serve overlapping customer bases. Yet one consistently achieves 98 percent inventory accuracy while the other struggles at 92 percent. One turns inventory 10 times annually while the other manages only 6 turns. One maintains 95 percent on-time delivery while the […]

Discrete vs. Process Manufacturing ERP: Key Differences and Requirements

Not all manufacturing is the same—and not all ERP systems handle different manufacturing types equally well. A pharmaceutical company blending chemical compounds operates fundamentally differently than a machinery manufacturer assembling components. Their production processes, inventory challenges, quality requirements, and regulatory obligations diverge in ways that demand different ERP capabilities. Choosing an ERP system without understanding […]

Work Order Management: Complete Guide for Manufacturers

Production doesn’t happen by accident. Every finished product that leaves your facility represents the successful execution of countless coordinated activities—materials gathered, machines prepared, labor allocated, quality checks performed, and timelines met. The work order is the document that orchestrates all of this, transforming production plans into tangible results. For manufacturers seeking operational excellence, work order […]