by Jennifer Hart Yim | Jun 12, 2019 | Blog, Marketing, Marketing Automation, Social Media
Automation can make your social media marketing more efficient and effective, allowing you more time to develop and execute other marketing campaigns. Here are 11 social media marketing mistakes to avoid.
Social media automation is quite a controversial marketing topic. The critics cry, “Social media is supposed to be social!” The supporters retort, “It’s all about efficiency!” Surely, there’s a middle ground, right? Just look at those adorable little robot eyes. Automation can’t be all bad, right?
We certainly agree. Social media automation can be done right. Just avoid the following 11 awful social media automation mistakes, and you’ll be good to go.
11 Awful Social Media Automation Mistakes Marketers Should Stop Making
1. You’re Scared of It.
Are you one of those social media automation critics we mentioned in the intro? Stop being such a fraidy cat … you’re missing out! When done right, automation can make your social media marketing more efficient and effective, allowing you more time to develop and execute other marketing campaigns and promotions. We’ve even developed a simple, customizable social media scheduling template and blog post guide to help you organize and plan your social media updates for the most popular social networks. Just avoid the rest of the mistakes on this list, and you’re golden. Guilty social automation conscience begone!
2. You’re Using Way Too Much of It.
Remember: too much of anything is usually bad, and the overuse of social media automation is usually what makes the automation critics cringe the most. First, you need to find the right balance of updates for each of the social networks you’re participating in. This involves testing and optimization to determine your ideal publishing frequency, and it usually involves pushing the limit a little bit. Try increasing the number of updates you currently publish and gauge your fans’/followers’ reactions. You might be surprised that you can update more than you thought and that you get a nice little lead bumps as a bonus!
Remember, the half-life ( the time it takes a link to receive half the clicks it will ever receive after it’s reached its peak) of a link shared on Twitter is only 2.8 hours, which means it’s acceptable to publish fairly frequently. On Facebook, updates last a little bit longer, so you don’t need to publish quite as much. Our social media publishing template recommends starting with 8 tweets a day, 4 Facebook updates, and 3 LinkedIn updates. Which leads us to our next mistake …
3. You Leave No Room for Ad Hoc Updates.
Don’t automate so much content in social media that you’re really pushing it if something last minute pops up that you really want to post an update about on your social networks. Things come up. You’re behind on your leads goal and you just created an awesome new ebook that you want to promote via social? You shouldn’t feel guilty about popping in a tweet or two about it in addition to your scheduled, automated updates. Or maybe you did some awesome newsjacking and you want your fans and followers to know about it right away. Don’t overdo it with the scheduled updates that you have to sacrifice those last-minute opportunities that arise.
4. You’re Setting it and Forgetting It.
Schedule and automate your social media updates and there’s no reason to check your social media accounts until the next batch of updates needs to be uploaded to HootSuite, right? WRONG. Do this, and you should be subjected to the wrath of social media automation critics. Just because you’re automating some updates, doesn’t mean you’re off the hook for monitoring the conversation — and participating in it. You still need to monitor the discussion happening around your content, answering your fans’ and followers’ questions, and, that’s right … engaging. In real time, or close to it. And with all the social media monitoring tools available to make it easier to do, there’s no excuse not to.
5. You’re Hiring an Agency to Manage It and Not Properly Setting Expectations.
Let’s relive the story of a former HubSpot employee who fell victim to some very unfortunate, poorly executed social media automation. What happened was, AT&T hired a marketing agency to execute its Ticket Chasers Twitter campaign for March Madness. The intent of the campaign was to target people who would be interested in the content of the program with personalized tweets: bloggers (who would get the word out about Ticket Chasers), people who live in the cities in which the Ticket Chasers promotion is occurring, and people who mention basketball or March Madness. Except what ended up happening was the agency targeting people that fit these criteria even if they weren’t followers of AT&T — and a very spammy Twitter presence.
The lesson is this: If you’re going to outsource any type of automation, make sure you set some very clear and specific expectations with your agency up front — both for what constitutes proper targeting and automation, and how frequently the campaign should be monitored so there could be a quick response if something goes awry.
6. Your Scheduled Updates Even SOUND Robotic.
Just because you’re scheduling automated updates doesn’t mean it has to sound like a robot wrote the copy. Spend some time carefully crafting your social media updates, and for goodness’ sake, infuse some personality into them! It should sound like a human took the time to craft the update because a human did take the time to create them, right?
7. Your Content Is Stale or Unremarkable.
Nothing indicates a low-quality social media presence like unremarkable content. Whether you’re manually updating your social networks or using automation to make your social media marketing more efficient, it’s all about the content of your updates. Share awesome content that your audience cares about, and they won’t mind that you may have scheduled it in advance. If you’re using HubSpot’s free social media scheduling template, keep your content repository tab stocked with a mix of awesome evergreen content that never gets stale and can be re-promoted over time, as well as new content and offers you create over time.
8. Your Timing Is Way Off.
Just scheduling updates all willy nilly without strategizing about timing? Think about it. Should that online coupon you’re sharing really get tweeted on the 12th when it expires on the 11th? Probably not. Be careful — nothing smells like stinky automation more than careless planning and timing. Should that offer, which just so happens to be targeted at your international prospects in Mumbai, be posted to your Facebook business page at 5 PM ET? Remember, it’s 2:30 AM in Mumbai. Be sure you’re scheduling your updates for times that make sense for your audience, and don’t be afraid to do some testing and experimentation to determine exactly what that optimal timing is.
9. You Treat Scheduled Updates the Same Way on All Social Networks.
Not all social networks are the same, so don’t treat your updates like they’re one-size-fits-all. Each has its own guidelines, tone, and different types of users, so make sure you tailor your updates to appeal to each social network’s nuances. For example, your Twitter updates need to fit within 280 characters, but snippets that accompany links you share on LinkedIn and Facebook can be much longer. And LinkedIn caters to a much more professional audience than, say, Facebook. And remember, you can reuse a lot of the same content across social networks; it’s how you frame and position that content that should be tweaked.
10. You’re Not Measuring Results and Adjusting Accordingly.
Trying to pick your best content for your automated updates? Attempting to determine the optimal timing and frequency of your updates for each social network? You’re probably going to need to rely on your analytics for all those things, don’t you think? Make use of your marketing analytics to identify the content and offers that tend to perform well in social media so you can promote more of the types of content that work, and nix the types that don’t. Track your leads and referral traffic from social media, coupled with qualitative data on how your fans/followers react to timing and frequency, so you can optimize those techniques as well.
11. You’re Not Adding Sharing Links to Your Content.
That’s right — think of it as social media automation enablement. Adding social media sharing links/buttons to all your content, whether it’s a web/landing page, blog post, within an ebook, in an email, makes it easy for your audience to spread your content for you, and expand your reach. It’s sort of like automating evangelism! It might sound sneaky, but your audience will probably appreciate that you’ve done some of the work involved in sharing content for them. People are always looking for social sharing fodder, and if your content is awesome, it’ll make them look like a valuable social media connection who shares great stuff!
Are you making effective use of social media automation? What else would you add to this list of social automation mistakes?
This article was written by Pamela Vaughan. Pamela is a Principal Marketing Manager, Website CRO & Copywriting at HubSpot. She is best known for introducing the concept of historical optimization, which increased organic search traffic and leads for HubSpot’s blog by more than 200%.
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by Jennifer Hart Yim | May 28, 2019 | Blog, Talent
Soft skills are more important than ever, and emotional intelligence is arguably more important than all the rest.
Highlights:
- Because Supply Chain now touches on every aspect of a business, soft skills have become more important than ever.
- Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand one’s own emotions as well as the emotions of others.
- Emotionally intelligent people are more thoughtful about decisions within an organization. They’re able to see others’ points of view, and better judge how their decisions will impact others.
This guest post comes to us from Argentus Supply Chain Recruiting, a boutique recruitment firm specializing in Supply Chain Management and Procurement.
The rise of emerging technologies like big data and AI has changed the skills profile for a number of white collar careers – not the least of which is Supply Chain Management, which is our specialty at Argentus. Tools like SAP, other ERP systems and Supply Chain visibility software have opened up massive opportunities for people who can analyze data and draw intelligence. They’ve raised Supply Chain’s profile in companies. The function now drives and transforms big picture strategy instead of just fighting daily fires.
Supply Chain is a STEM field. People with engineering, data analysis, systems development, and other hard skills will always be important. But there’s something interesting happening in the skills profile for top Supply Chain people: because Supply Chain now touches on every aspect of a business, soft skills have become more important than ever. It’s a bit of a paradox, but it’s borne out in our conversations with clients, as well as executives across the field.
And in 2019, there’s one soft skill that reigns supreme: emotional intelligence.
[bctt tweet=”According to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs report, emotional intelligence is the most important emerging soft skill heading into 2020. ” username=”Fronetics”]
According to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs report, emotional intelligence is the most important emerging soft skill heading into 2020. This great article in Fast Company digs into the research. It examines the importance of emotional intelligence (EQ), and explains why hiring managers often prize EQ over IQ when identifying talent today.
What is emotional intelligence?
In short, it’s the ability to understand one’s own emotions as well as the emotions of others. It’s closely related with empathy, and leads to an increased ability to understand your team’s needs in the workplace. In general, research has found a correlation between high emotional intelligence and job performance, mental health, and leadership skills.
In a recent interview, Supply Chain VP Taras Korec identified emotional intelligence as one of the most crucial soft skills for everyone in the field, from the analyst level up to the VP level. He also said he hires based on attitude and emotional intelligence rather than hard skills.
But organizations don’t always see the value in developing their employees’ emotional intelligence, and this has big ramifications. As Taras put it, “if you’re an analyst and you go to your boss and say, ‘I want some training on the hard skills,’ that’s a pretty obvious sell. But how many people have the courage at the analyst level to say, ‘I want to take training on emotional intelligence’? A lot of leaders may not have invested in those skills themselves. They may not see the value in them, which reinforces that deficit throughout the organization.”
According to the research, these are some of the biggest career advantages enjoyed by people with high emotional intelligence (EQ):
- The ability to deal with pressure. Emotional intelligence helps you understand and regulate your own emotional state, which leads to better stress management and healthy coping mechanisms. Supply Chain is often a high-stress profession, with critical business outcomes riding on SCM planning and performance – so emotional intelligence is particularly helpful.
- Increased co-operation. The Fast Company analysis points out how workplaces are becoming more collaborative, as well as inclusive to people from different backgrounds. Emotional intelligent people are better relationship-builders, and that’s valuable in a field like Supply Chain where you’re often working with people from all over the world.
- The superpower of using feedback as fuel. In general, intelligent people tend to recognize the importance of self-improvement and skills development. But people with good emotional intelligence are also more open to others’ feedback – which is necessary to see what they need to improve. They don’t take criticism personally, so they’re better poised to turn feedback and areas of improvement in performance reviews into fuel for personal growth.
- Improved leadership skills. People with high emotional intelligence have better empathy, resilience, and ability to build influence – key traits for business leaders. Success in Supply Chain Management – especially in disciplines like Procurement – relies on an ability to build relationships and influence stakeholders from across the business. People with high emotional intelligence are great at rising above daily firefighting. They’re more likely to be seen as leaders within a business. They’re respected. People listen when they speak, even if they don’t have a “leadership” title. As Supply Chain VP Taras Korec said in our recent interview, “there’s no reason you can’t lead, regardless of your title.”
- Better decision making and ability to adapt to change. The business world is changing rapidly in the age of digital technology, and this is especially true within Supply Chain and Procurement, which are undergoing major transformations at top organizations. Emotionally intelligent people are more thoughtful about decisions within an organization. They’re able to see others’ points of view, and better judge how their decisions will impact others.
Like any soft skill, emotional intelligence can be intangible. It’s way harder for a Supply Chain professional to put emotional intelligence on a resume than their skills with a particular SAP module. Conversely, it’s also harder for a hiring manager to systematically screen for emotional intelligence than other “hard” skills. It’s harder to design a university course around. But the fact is, you know it when you see it, and truly great hiring managers know how to assess emotional intelligence in a job interview.
You might not find emotional intelligence in a list of SCM core competencies – but like any other soft skill, it’s crucial. And it’s only becoming more important.
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by Jennifer Hart Yim | Apr 25, 2019 | Blog, Supply Chain, Talent
New research backs up what we already know: the supply chain economy is a hotbed of innovation, and that opens up immense professional opportunities.
Highlights:
- New research assigns some numbers to two facts that every Supply Chain professional knows: the sector is full of opportunity for professionals and it is a hotbed for innovation.
- Supply Chain industry innovations have a tendency to reverberate and cascade throughout the wider economy as they filter from suppliers, to the companies they supply, and finally to the consumer.
- People who are able to harness and drive supply chain innovation have some of the brightest job prospects in tomorrow’s economy.
This guest post comes to us from Argentus Supply Chain Recruiting, a boutique recruitment firm specializing in Supply Chain Management and Procurement.
A new Harvard Business Review article lays out some striking research out of MIT about the role of Supply Chain Management within the broader economy. Written by Mercedes Delgado and Karen Mills, the study seeks to better define what constitutes the “Supply Chain” part of the economy, and what doesn’t. The goal? To better define Supply Chain Management’s place in the broader economy, and the role it plays in terms of innovation.
The researchers define “Supply Chain” industries as any industries that sell upstream to businesses and government entities. It excludes industries selling direct to consumer (B2C). It’s a bit of a curious definition – what about the B2C companies with strong supply chain and distribution networks? – but we’ll roll with it.
In short, the research assigns some numbers to two facts that every Supply Chain professional knows: the sector is full of opportunity for professionals. It’s also a hotbed for innovation which has a tendency to filter into other sectors of the economy.
The MIT researchers studied the historical role that these Supply Chain companies have played in American innovation. For example, Intel’s semiconductors and Microsoft’s enterprise software are innovations with their roots in the supply chain – supplying to companies – that are almost unparalleled in terms of their downstream effect on the overall economy, as well as the daily experience of the average person.
The researchers make an interesting point: compared to “B2C” industries, Supply Chain industry innovations have a tendency to reverberate and cascade throughout the wider economy as they filter from suppliers, to the companies they supply, and finally to the consumer. Technologies like cloud computing –which is now sold to 90% of industries – have their roots in the Supply Chain, which helps them diffuse across industries as they spread downstream and become integral to the economy. In Delgado and Mills’ estimation, this “trickling down” gives these innovations a multiplying effect that isn’t found in more consumer-facing industries.
Put aside the fact that the most successful consumer-facing companies of the past several decades have been tremendously innovative (Apple and Amazon, for example) – in part because of their Supply Chain practices – and it’s an intriguing idea. The fact is, Supply Chain management drives innovation, and the people who drive that innovation have some of the brightest job prospects out of anyone in the economy.
People in Supply Chain are more likely to be in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) than the wider economy. They’re also better compensated – perhaps as an indirect result of their contributions to innovation.
Here are a few of the most interesting – and exciting – top-level stats from the research:
- In the U.S. – which the study examined – 44 million jobs are in Supply Chain, or 37% of the overall economy.
- The average wage of Supply Chain-related jobs was much higher than average, at $61,700 – compared to $39,200 for non-Supply Chain jobs.
- 4% of Supply Chain jobs were STEM-related jobs – considered a predictor of innovation – compared to only 2.1% of non-Supply Chain jobs.
- 6% of new patents in the U.S. evolve from the Supply Chain sector.
The researchers chart another interesting distinction and trend, towards the importance of Supply Chain Services from traditional manufacturing. Supply Chain services jobs – including logistics, engineering, cloud computing, and others – have grown massively to encompass 80% of jobs in the sector, but most still consider Supply Chain to mean traditional manufacturing jobs such as metal stamping or injection molding operators.
Supply Chain Services workers have the highest STEM intensity out of everyone in the economy (19%), which also coincides with the highest wages ($80,800 a year, on average). This tracks with a trend in the wider economy towards services and away from traditional manufacturing, and shows what we know to be the case: despite panic about automation, Supply Chain professionals who can innovate are in very high demand.
Whether you agree or disagree with Mills and Delgado’s definitions and findings, it’s clear to anyone paying attention that the Supply Chain is a force-multiplier for innovation to the economy. It’s truer now than it’s ever been, and people who are able to harness and drive that innovation have some of the brightest job prospects in tomorrow’s economy.
Do you agree with the authors’ definition of Supply Chain? Is it too broad, not broad enough, or is it right on the money? We’re curious to hear anything else you might have to add about the importance of Supply Chain for innovation in the wider economy!
In the meantime, we encourage everyone to check out the HBR article as well as the authors’ original study, which has some fascinating insights about the role Supply Chains play in innovation.
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by Jennifer Hart Yim | Mar 27, 2019 | Blog, Content Marketing, Current Events, Leadership, Marketing, Supply Chain, Talent
In today’s job market, companies have to compete harder than ever before and candidates, realizing their position, have begun ghosting employers. Ghosting has never been in an issue in the professional setting until now.
Highlights:
- According to a new report, more companies and recruiters are getting ghosted, with thousands of users on LinkedIn chiming in about what seems to be a uniquely-millennial phenomenon moving into the workplace.
- Ghosting’s prevalence speaks to a talent attraction and retention problem that many companies are having in this marketplace.
- Recruiters who are specialized in your vertical have an established base of candidates, so you can remove ghosting from the equation entirely.
This guest post comes to us from Argentus Supply Chain Recruiting, a boutique recruitment firm specializing in Supply Chain Management and Procurement.
Many of us have (thankfully) been out of the dating game long enough that we’ve never experienced what most millennials have: the dreaded ghost. You meet someone new, hit it off, go on a few dates, maybe even tell your friends and parents about an exciting romantic prospect. Then the hammer drops: all of a sudden, radio silence. No “dear John” letter, no break-up text, and no explanation whatsoever. It’s a digitally-enabled way of severing ties that’s so casual it hurts, because the affected (dare we say victim?) never gets to find out what exactly happened. The imagination runs wild with possible motivations for this disrespect: was it them? Was it me?
You never really know. That’s what makes it so tough.
Now, according to reports, this peculiar social phenomenon has metastasized into the workplace:
The job market is so hot, more candidates are ghosting their employers. Or prospective employers.
Welcome to 2019.
It’s no secret that the hiring market is strong, with near-historic low levels of unemployment. Now, according to a recent NPR report, more companies and recruiters are getting ghosted. It’s also become a hot topic on LinkedIn, with thousands of users chiming in about what seems to be a uniquely-millennial phenomenon moving into the workplace. Reports about ghosting even made their way into a recent report from the U.S. Federal Reserve – which shows that ghosting isn’t just a meme, but something that’s really affecting companies’ hiring practices and their bottom line.
NPR – as well as this great article by LinkedIn Contributor Molly Mosley – identify three key species of ghost:
- The employee who accepts a role and gets into the job – thankfully, it’s not often a long-term employee, otherwise a missing person report might be in order – and leaves without a trace.
- The job candidate who books a job interview, or accepts a role, and doesn’t show up, or send any kind of communication or response when contacted.
- The candidate who works with a recruiter, asks to be submitted for a role, and then stops responding. There are quite a few reports about this, but we’re lucky that we haven’t experienced it as much in our recruitment practice at Argentus.
Ghosting is a very modern-feeling phenomenon. It’s a symptom of a more relaxed – dare we say, lax – approach to interpersonal and professional relationships brought about by digital technology. But it’s also a symptom of something more fundamental about this job market:
It’s a candidate’s market – especially in high-demand STEM fields like Supply Chain.
We’re willing to bet that in a recession, all these ghosts would become corporeal again. But for now, candidates have all the leverage, and what’s more, they’re beginning to realize this, which means that companies have to compete harder than ever before.
Don’t get us wrong: ghosting is unacceptable, and we don’t mean to excuse it. No one would want to hire a candidate who’s ghosted an employer in the past, and we’d stop working with anyone if we found out they’ve done it before. It’s, in short, the height of unprofessionalism. Any company who gets ghosted on has really dodged a bullet: who would want to work with someone who would resort to such a childish and cowardly tactic?
But ghosting’s prevalence still speaks to a talent attraction and retention problem that many companies are having in this marketplace. Consider this: if your company interviews someone, and never gives any form of feedback or follow-up – which still happens, believe it or not – you’re ghosting candidates as well.
It cuts both ways. And that gestures towards a few changes that companies can make to help minimize the risk of ghosting – which can waste thousands of dollars of company resources:
Smooth out the onboarding process.
In short, treat prospective candidates like a valuable strategic asset instead of a disposable endless resource. The accounts of ghosting from the workers in the NPR story, as well as others, share something in common: the workers felt disrespected or disregarded by their employers.
[bctt tweet=”The accounts of ghosting from the workers in the NPR story, as well as others, share something in common: the workers felt disrespected or disregarded by their employers.” username=”Fronetics”]
Treating candidates with respect is table stakes in this hiring environment. But consider the ways that you’re unintentionally depersonalizing the hiring and onboarding process: letting it get drawn out with endless approvals and interviews, resorting to impersonal communication methods, failing to have succinct and effecting onboarding policies to get new candidates up to speed.
Lastly, because we can’t resist: a specialized recruitment partner will forward pre-vetted candidates, often ones that they’ve known for years, who you know won’t ghost. Recruiters who are specialized in your vertical have an established base of candidates, so you can remove ghosting from the equation entirely.
But what’s your experience? Have you been ghosted by an employee or job candidate before? Why do you think this issue is coming into the zeitgeist right now?
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by Jennifer Hart Yim | Feb 28, 2019 | Blog, Strategy, Supply Chain, Warehousing & Materials Handling
If you want to keep your customers satisfied, you need to keep things moving in your facility. Use these tips to keep up the pace and increase warehouse and distribution center efficiency.
Highlights:
- Speed has become the name of the game when it comes to staying competitive in the global supply chain.
- Keep your priorities in mind when organizing your warehouse, including your fastest-moving products.
- Digital technology can take the guesswork out of inventory and warehouse management with employees scanning products every step of the way.
This guest post was written by David Maddenfor Argentus Supply Chain Recruiting, a boutique recruitment firm specializing in Supply Chain Management and Procurement.
Things can always be faster when you work in a warehouse or distribution center. Speed has become the name of the game when it comes to staying competitive in the global supply chain. Major players like Amazon and Walmart have distribution centers all over the world, pumping out packages at lightning speed.
If you want to keep your customers satisfied, you need to keep things moving in your warehouse or distribution center. Use these tips to keep up the pace and make your facility as efficient as possible.
1. Keep your warehouse organized
Nothing stymies operational efficiency like a poorly-organized warehouse. Your facility should have a thoroughly thought-out floor plan that your employees can navigate with ease. The space should be organized so that your staff members can access products and packages without getting in each other’s way. Your employees may need to process different orders simultaneously, so they should have plenty of space to avoid stepping on each other’s toes. Today’s warehouses are much larger than they were in the past, creating more space for speed and efficiency.
Items should be clearly labeled on the shelf and organized in a way that makes sense for your facility. You can group packages by their contents, destination or point of origin. This layout should make sense to your employees, so they’ll be able find the items they need without having to look at a spreadsheet.
2. Prioritize fast-moving products
Keep your priorities in mind when organizing your warehouse. Every element of your chosen layout should favor your fastest-moving products. Bestsellers don’t tend to sit on the shelf for very long, so make sure your employees can easily retrieve them at all times. Your employees shouldn’t have to go all the way to the back just to retrieve a product, especially if it’s one of your most popular items. You can help everyone save time by moving these fast-selling products to the front of your warehouse. They should be kept low to the ground and close to the loading dock.
Your entire warehouse layout should focus on moving better-performing products to the front, while keeping the less popular products at the back. Go over your inventory and rate your products based on how often your employees need to retrieve them. This should inform your thinking as you change the layout of your facility.
3. Automate the data collection process
Running a warehouse these days is all about data. Digital technology can take the guesswork out of inventory and warehouse management with employees scanning products every step of the way. Your facility should collect as much data on your products as possible, including where they’re coming from, when they arrive, what condition they are in, where they’re going and when they’re set to leave. You can use this data to keep tabs on the location of your products. At any given moment, you’ll know exactly how many products are being stored at your facility.
But in order to improve efficiency, you need to automate the data collection process as much as possible. Your staff members should automatically retrieve this data as they go about unloading and scanning items that have just arrived at the facility and getting them ready for the last leg of their journey. You can use handheld scanners and radio frequency identification tags to simplify this process. Automating data collection also reduces costly errors like inaccurate data entry.
Warehouse automation technology is already a $1.9 billion industry, and it’s expected to balloon to $22 billion by the year 2021. If you want to stay competitive, it might be time to invest in automation. You’ll have all the information you need at your fingertips without adding any additional steps to your operations.
4. Use inventory management software
As you collect all this data on the shipping containers and products moving in and out of your facility, you can save time by sending that info right to your company’s inventory management software. This technology helps you make sense of all the data in a matter of seconds. You can quickly see how many products are on the shelf, when shipments need to go out and when new shipments are due to arrive. Software programs are synced to your data collection devices, so you won’t have to worry about entering that information twice.
[bctt tweet=”Artificially intelligent software programs can even help you anticipate future outcomes like inventory shortages, delivery delays and other potential problems. ” username=”Fronetics”]
Certain artificially intelligent software programs can even help you anticipate future outcomes like inventory shortages, delivery delays and other potential problems. They keep a log of the history of your facility’s operations to help better predict what’s going to happen in the future.
5. Save time with cross docking
If you have fast-moving products coming through the door, you can save time with what’s known as cross docking. Instead of putting these products back on the shelf only to have your employees retrieve them hours later, direct them to a temporary staging area for scanning and inventory purposes. This temporary staging area should be close to the loading dock. When the products are ready for the next leg of their trip, your employees can quickly retrieve them and get them out the door without having to look for them on the shelf.
6. Increase visibility with better lighting
The key to operational efficiency isn’t always as complicated as it seems. Sometimes all you need is better lighting. Warehouses tend to have tall ceilings, and lighting the space, including all those individual shelves, can be a challenge. If you want to be speed up your warehouse operations, everyone should be able to see clearly as they go about their business. Staff members should be able to read labels and use containers without having to squint. Keeping the lights on also helps your employees stay awake, especially if they’re getting a shipment ready in the middle of the night.
Working towards warehouse efficiency
Making your warehouse more efficient starts with having the right layout in place. Your products should be organized according to their popularity. You should automatically collect data on your products as soon as they enter the facility. And always make sure your employees have enough space and light to do their jobs. Follow these steps and you’ll get orders out the door in record time.
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