If you’re new to retailing, you might be wondering why so many businesses make the effort to be EDI-compliant. The truth is that EDI or electronic data interchange is not just a hassle you have to push through to meet business standards. EDI is a practice that benefits the companies who use it by greatly streamlining their supply chains, which saves time, money, and resources, allowing businesses to yield greater profits in the long run.

EDI allows trade partners to share information quickly, efficiently, and accurately. This ensures that retailers know exactly when goods will arrive, giving them time to plan for shortages and adjust their processes accordingly. Furthermore, transmitting information electronically reduces the potential for human error that businesses used to experience when communicating with their trade partners. According to EDI Basics, EDI reduces transactions with errors by at least 30-40%. The increased accuracy ensures that less time and money will be spent correcting mistakes. As previously mentioned, EDI also does a great deal to speed up the supply chain. This speed allows businesses to stock and sell more products to customers, resulting in more gains.

It is a well-known fact that advanced warehouse management is critical for the success of your business. However, it is essential that EDI and barcoding are included in the warehouse management process. This would ultimately help you in keeping up with the fast pace of your business. There are several basic requirements that are needed for the effective implementation of EDI and barcoding in warehouse management.

Cloud-based warehouse management technology can be implemented. This could help in accessing your warehouse information from any location. ASN is another major requirement as it allows visibility into how much inventory is expected to arrive. This would eventually help with planning and efficient management, thus ensuring the transfer of goods without any errors. Furthermore, barcode label printing technology can be used to print shipping reports as well as labels. This makes it compatible with the respective industry standards.

Warehouse management demands that the EDI and barcoding be perfectly integrated in the system. This is extremely critical for the efficiency of the entire process. As a result, the system can easily generate information from the ASN transaction. Therefore, as soon as the inventory is received, the barcode can be scanned and matched with the ASN. Finally, an internal pick label can be printed, which would make inventory flow quite efficient.

Article Submitted By Herb Kimble.

Do you think it is easy for a small business employer to not only focus on his tasks, but also complete all the other tasks that are required to be carried out in the store?

To say the least, while it might be manageable, the level of service provided will not be able to match the attention and expertise offered by a small business answering service.

If you aren’t convinced why, here are some ways by which an answering service that has several years in the business can help you:

#1: Leave no customer unattended

Leaving a customer unattended means not valuing his or her time, even though you might not mean to be rude. If you are swamped with tasks that need your dedicated attention, it becomes difficult to multitask. In hiring an outsourced answering service, you can guarantee that your customers will get the undivided attention that they need.

#2: Offer you a range of services at low costs

If you are expanding your business to include products that need help desk services to cater to customers, it certainly seems more viable from the cost point of view to hire one of these answering services. Most of these answering services have developed tried and true methods in offering these services for their clients, which is something that you can profit from as you move forward.

#3: Efficient, helpful, and knowledgeable staff

Whether you need a medical answering service or simple customer service, the methods of hiring and training have all been put into place so that each of their clients get the best staff to ‘be the face of the company’s that they are working for. In having this important task being taken care of by efficient, helpful, and knowledgeable staff, you can then focus on more important matters.

Bio: Herb Kimble is an entrepreneur in sales and marketing, who has expertise in everything from direct marketing to telemarketing. Herb Kimble grew several businesses in the Philippines, and is considered a leading mind in sales and marketing. Check out Herb Kimble’s Pinterest page.

The new flagship iPhones and Samsung Galaxy devices are fast, bring the latest version of the OS and state of the art features. Unfortunately, these top-end phones also carry flagship level prices. For the majority of people, these phones are too expensive and do not justify the cost. The good news is that thanks to Android, there are phones that are both affordable and fast. Here is what to look for in a new budget-friendly phone:

Processor

Unless you buy a used iPhone, every other phone uses some version of the Qualcomm Snapdragon. The latest version is the 835. The new chip relegates last year’s already fast 820 chip to second tier phones. Both the 820 and the 810 are more than sufficient for most people’s needs.

Memory

Memory is one spec where people might have issues with what comes with the phone. The lowest spec phones come with 16GB of built-in storage. Fortunately, most Android phones have SD-Card slots for expansion. SD-Cards are much cheaper than buying phones with more storage.

Camera

The camera is the area where the newest phones have the biggest advantage. Mobile camera technology is progressing rapidly, especially on the software side. For the advanced post processing to work, the phone needs the latest processors. However, when the new Google Pixel is released, there should be a price drop of the original model, making one of the best mobile cameras more affordable.

These are the three main areas that should affect your choice of smartphone. There are others like OS updates, but such features are mostly exclusive to top-end phones.