Top 10 Benefits of Integrated Retail Management Systems

Business growth is good news, but it brings new problems and opportunities that demand new solutions. Managing a growing business often leads to the addition of an application or system to meet immediate needs, but can set the stage for future operational inefficiencies, time and resource drains, or risk of error.

A better solution to consider is an integrated retail management system, one designed to manage all aspects of your business and scale alongside your growth.

Your first thought may be that it doesn’t exist. There’s no one solution that covers everything including point of sale, inventory management, CRM, accounting, supply chain management, and eCommerce. Taking advantage of application integration based on a platform, however, can provide a total solution that’s the perfect fit for your business. Your solutions provider can help you select a retail management system that meets your current and future business needs, and show you options for applications that have been designed to integrate with that platform. Taking a platform approach means all applications work together, data is easily shared between them, and you can manage it all from one system.

If you need an additional application or tool that isn’t available, software developers can access the platform’s APIs for integration with your business’ other systems and applications. Whether you are just feeling growing pains related to disparate retail management systems, or if you’ve been laboring with them for years, changing to a business management platform with integrated applications provide significant benefits and prevent future issues related to your current management architecture.

The top 10 benefits of an integrated retail management system are:

1. Real-time visibility into all facets of your business
2. Elimination of many IT maintenance and integration costs
3. Heightened productivity as duplication of effort and conflicting responsibilities are eliminated
4. The possibility to avoid new hires for data management roles
5. Better communication among departments and more harmonized operations
6. Easy deployment of new applications and expansion of systems to new physical locations or channels
7. Easier training for new employees or employees changing roles
8. Quicker, more efficient customer service and enhanced customer experience
9. Greater ability to upsell and cross-sell
10. More time for management to focus on other areas of the business

One Final Benefit: Data

Using integrated retail management system to manage your retail business will also provide significant benefits when it comes to data analysis. With systems and applications that can communicate with each other, you gain an overall view of your business and the ability to correlate and compare data in new ways.

To learn more about managing your business with an integrated retail management system to gain the real-time, global visibility of your business you need to keep it profitable and competitive, download our free eBook, What’s Next for Retail: Navigating Your Business from Now into the Future.