If your retail business has unique software needs for niche functions, it might seem like you should develop in-house programs to ensure the system adheres to your specifications. But is this actually more efficient?
There are general functions that can be better served with outsourcing software design. With order management systems, while it might seem like it's in your best interest to develop your own in-house OMS, here's what you need to know.
An OMS will be crucial for retailers in providing a seamless ecommerce experience for customers across channels: 73 percent of retailers plan to leverage an OMS within 3 years to deliver a unified commerce platform, according to a recent Boston Retail Partners survey. With OMS playing such a big role in the coming years, it's imperative you utilize a system that best serves your business goals.
Consider these three problems with building your own OMS:
1. Lack of Expertise
Unless you're operating an information technology company, chances are you won't have many IT or order management experts on the workforce. This leaves retailers with two options: Have your current employees craft a system you can easily outgrow or hire a team of IT experts. While the first option is unsatisfactory, the second choice can also be less than desirable. Top candidates for IT and ecommerce positions are often recruited by big tech companies, making them difficult to attract to your company or expensive to hire.
2. A Resource Drain
A survey conducted by Infonetics Research discovered that the costs of technology downtime for medium and large businesses in North America resulted in an average of $1 million a year, including server, application and network outages.
While in the past, most IT infrastructure and applications were expensive and inflexible to support large organizations' internal processes, this is simply no longer the case. Utilizing an outsourced OMS platform offers retailers a chance to actually save money compared to constantly allocating resources to updating, improving and modifying a legacy system.
3. Inability to adapt or scale
As your business grows, it's crucial that your OMS adapts and scales alongside your operations. Relying on a rigid system that lacks the capability to scale can leave your company locked in inefficient workflows. According to a recent Deloitte survey, 23 percent of respondents said their core legacy systems were inflexible, with an additional 13 percent saying the systems were insufficient and counterintuitive. This decreases overall productivity and hinders workers from reaching their full potential.
Overcoming These Problems
Leveraging a third-party vendor for your ecommerce order management system provides you with the tools you need to successfully optimize this aspect of your company.
Deck Commerce delivers distributed order management and supports omnichannel commerce operations with:
- Multi-channel order aggregation
- Advanced order orchestration
- Transaction processing
- Returns management
- Customer service tools
Utilizing a dedicated OMS design like Deck Commerce allows retailers to overcome these common problems associated with building an in-house legacy system.
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