The modern customer has a buy-now, buy-fast mentality. They expect a seamless experience across channels. In order to execute on the omni-channel promise, the order management solution must have visibility into the entire life-cycle of an order, along with capabilities within four critical areas: enterprise inventory visibility, order aggregation, order fulfillment and customer service.

Enterprise Inventory Visibility

The OMS must act as the trusted source of inventory data across the enterprise. Many times inventory information lives in several places; inventory within distribution centers lives within the warehouse management system (WMS), inventory on store shelves lives within the POS and supply chain inventory lives within the enterprise resource planning system (ERP). An omnichannel order management system must consolidate all this information in near-real time and provide one enterprise view of the inventory.

Order Aggregation

Just as it is imperative to have a single view of inventory, it is equally important to have a single view of order information. With orders being placed across multiple channels, the OMS must aggregate these orders into one centralized hub, thus providing a real time view of all customer purchase data across all channels.

Order Fulfillment

An inventory allocation engine that streamlines order fulfillment and optimizes back end order orchestration can help reduce shipping time, minimize costs and provide customers with options such as ship-from-store or pick-up-in-store. At the same time, business users have the ability to automate workflows, review order history, and manually enable order fulfillment.

Customer Service

Although it sounds simple, making changes to an existing order can be a challenge. Making changes to an order can impact inventory allocation, pricing and promotion adjustments, tax calculations, and payment processing. If an OMS solution does not have visibility into the entire life cycle of an order, there is simply no way it can make changes to existing orders.

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The key to a successful omni-channel operation lies within the order management solution. By connecting inventory, products and orders across the enterprise, you can be well on your way to an omni-channel solution for your customers.