Distribution businesses are increasingly leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) to improve their operations and gain a competitive advantage. AI technology is being used in a variety of ways, from streamlining order fulfillment process to personalizing customer experiences, helping companies maximize their profits.
In this digital age, many distributors have adopted AI into their distribution toolkit in some capacity to maintain a competitive edge in the industry, being well-positioned for success in the years ahead. By making various tasks quicker and easier, AI is here to stay.
Infused with AI, Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and chatbots for example are getting smarter and adding more value to their output. The rise of AI can be contributed to the scalability of cloud solutions such as Infor’s CloudSuite™ Distribution (CSD).
Where can AI create value for your distribution business and employees? We’ll explore the areas AI technology benefits the distribution industry in this blog post.
MANAGE SUPPLIERS – Many distributors are rightly proud of their supplier relations, but AI and machine learning can inspect the data behind their service and suggest ways to deliver improved supplier performance, ironing out process inefficiencies or product weaknesses that might only be visible in easily neglected returns logs.
IMPROVE THE SALES EXPERIENCE – AI can constantly tweak prices or display dynamic recommended buying options to increase the chance of completing a sale. Based on customer history and market conditions, AI-powered sales applications can suggest volume discounts using both sales data and sentiment analysis.
OPTIMIZE YOUR INVENTORY – Most distributors already run inventory applications to keep the right amount of stock ordered for today, but AI can monitor sales patterns and ensure that the right stock is in the right warehouse constantly as seasons, markets, and products or supplies change. AI can also monitor transport costs and supplier charges, finding the most cost-effective ways to purchase, deliver, and distribute goods to-and-from your warehouse operations. It can provide buyers with recommendations, and update routings, ensuring the fastest service for customers.
MAXIMIZE SALES AND BUYING EFFORTS – With AI making an increasingly powerful appearance in business processes and management tools, it can take over many of the monotonous and time-consuming tasks that workers used to handle. The extra time can be spent building relationships with customers up and down the supply chain, providing them with data-driven insights, and highlighting your company as one on the cutting edge.
EASE OF USE – Everyone from a new warehouse staffer to the CIO will get maximum value from their AI tools if you choose a platform with preconfigured AI models. This makes machine learning more accessible through low-code and no-code implementations. And automated retraining means hands-off maintenance.
How to Implement AI Into Your Distribution Business Operations?
Delivering value through smart insights…that’s what AI is all about. Fear of AI has largely been left in the rearview mirror, and this is only the beginning of AI’s place in technology. As mentioned above, the rise of AI can largely be attributed to the scalability of cloud solutions.
Maximize your resources and unlock potential growth opportunities with our team of Infor CloudSuite™ Distribution experts by your side. NSA continues to help distributors evolve by utilizing Infor’s modern cloud-based ERP solution for distributors – to modernize, maximize, and get business moving with industry-specific functionality.
Discover more about the benefits of Infor CloudSuite™ Distribution here. Your NSA team is always here to offer advice on integrating AI into host systems such as your Total Warehouse Management (TWL) or Enterprise Resource Planning system (ERP). Get in touch with us here or call us directly at 516-240-6020 to discuss this topic further.