Custom Order Management Software: Automate Your Order Fulfillment Process

When it comes to order management software (OMS), it has become essential for most businesses, especially in eCommerce, to enhance order fulfillment process. This includes managing sales, creating packages and shipments, sending delivery updates, and more. As a result, the demand and market size for this software have significantly increased.

A recent survey claims that the market size of OMS was valued at $2.95 billion in 2023 and is likely to reach up to $3.17 billion by 2030. It’s projected to grow at a CAGR of 5.48% during the period between 2024 to 2030.

So, if you also wish to improve the operational efficiency of your business and seek to implement a custom order management system, you must opt for Supply Chain Software Development Services.

The guide is your one-stop answer to all your questions related to custom order management software. Whether you are asking for the advantages, the challenges, the development procedure, the cost, the kinds, etc., it is all here. Just go through the entire article.

What is Custom Order Management Software?

The custom order management system is a tailored software solution designed mainly to streamline the entire order fulfillment process. It differs from off-the-shelf options and is customized mainly to match the specific business needs. It ensures both scalability and efficiency.

The said software can automate various important tasks like inventory updates, managing custom orders, customer notification, invoicing, accounting etc. Besides, it is the one that comes in handy when manual errors are being reduced. Besides, it allows you to see the operations clearly in real time and provides real-time data, too.

Custom order management software is perfect for businesses with certain unique processes or complex order structures. It results in high productivity, satisfied customers, and the flexibility needed to meet changing business requirements in order to be competitive as well as grow continuously.

In addition, Fleet Management Software Development Services can be integrated with your custom order management system to enhance logistics and delivery operations. This software helps track, monitor, and manage your fleet of vehicles in real-time, ensuring timely deliveries, optimized routes, and improved overall efficiency.

6 Key Benefits Of An Custom Order Management Software

Being a powerful solution to cater to specific business requirements, custom order management software offers a myriad of benefits for businesses. Let’s understand some of their top benefits.

1. Tailored Solutions

Custom software is mainly designed to align with perfection and your goals and business processes. It removes various unnecessary features while incorporating several specific functionalities that match your exact needs.

Be it managing unique order types or handling complex workflows, tailored solutions are capable of offering higher adaptability and efficiency.

2. Seamless System Integration

Integration of custom order management software with various existing systems, including CRM, ERP, or inventory management tools, ensures hassle-free operations. This kind of integration removes manual efforts and data silos and promotes a cohesive operational environment where different systems work together.

3. Improved Responsiveness

Custom order management software improves the ability of businesses to respond to order updates, changes, or customer inquiries in real-time. It allows businesses to make quick adjustments with streamlined processes, automated notifications, and real-time tracking. It also enhances their capability to match customer demands quickly and with a higher efficiency.

4. Centralized Data Management

A centralized platform can consolidate all order-related information, which offers a single source of truth. Be it minimizing duplication, data accuracy, or simplifying reporting, it improves everything.

Employees get the liberty to access real-time insights into inventory levels, orders, customer preferences, etc. It ensures good decision-making across various departments.

5. Improved Customer Experience

With custom order management software, customers can get accurate information, timely updates, personalized service, and more. It indeed improves their overall experience.

Custom order management software facilitates this by ensuring smooth communication, automating order tracking, and allowing businesses to provide tailored solutions according to customer preferences.

6. Scalability and Future-Proofing

You can understand the fact that custom software tends to grow with the growth of your business. Unlike various ordinary solutions, you can update custom software or expand with the growth of your business.

This kind of adaptability ensures your order management software investment tends to continue to deliver value with time, even with the evolving market demand.

Custom Order Management System Features

To ensure that the order management software is capable of performing all the expected tasks, all the essential features are integrated into the software. Here are some of the most crucial features that you should never miss during the order management system development.

1. Real-time Stock

This is the feature that remains at the forefront of managing tasks like stock level, stock positioning, and eliminating the chances of inventory level uncertainty. The stakeholders can get real-time updates on the inventory levels, logistics, and location.

2. Delivery and Service Scheduling

The scheduling feature enables the warehouse or inventory owner to schedule the departure, delivery, and call or inventory according to the demand in the market. So, the supply chain can be more efficient while eliminating the chances of delays. By using logistics management software development services, businesses can create customized order fulfillment solutions that optimize delivery times, improve resource allocation, and ensure timely service. This enhances operational efficiency and contributes to smoother supply chain management.

3. Customer Engagement Tools

The order management systems must be equipped with customer engagement tools that help users get self-help in case of small queries or doubts. It consists of personalized marketing, self-service portals for customers, and multi-channel support.

4. Accounting Integration

As the name suggests, this is the feature that helps to manage the finances of the entire supply chain while also synchronizing them with the inventory levels. The feature facilitates the functions like invoicing, billing, payment reconciliations, etc.

5. Compliance Management

A good order management system ought to be integrated with a compliance management feature that ensures that all the software’s capabilities adhere to compliance and industry standards.

Six Types of Custom Order Management Systems

Businesses come across a variety of order management software when looking for the top order management software. We will discuss here some of them.

1. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Software

ERP systems are superior in connecting order management with accounting, inventory control, customer relationship management, and other business processes. Thus, they are attractive to even big companies that need centralized management of rather complex workflows.

ERP software gives an all-around view of operations and is absolutely trouble-free in terms of intra-departmental coordination. Meanwhile, the cost and complexity of ERP systems make them less appropriate, mainly for small businesses. Some of the top examples include NetSuite and SAP.

2. Supply Chain Order Management Software

This is another important type of order management software that is capable of handling even the complicated demands of supply chain operations. It allows seamless interaction between various stakeholders, including manufacturers, suppliers, retailers, distributors, and others. It ensures precise tracking of orders, management of inventory, demand forecasting, and more.

Supply chain order management software has an immense capability of providing real-time visibility into the supply chain. It’s also helpful in minimizing delays and errors. Supply chain OMS is specifically beneficial for many industries, such as retail, manufacturing, and others.

3. Standalone Order Management Software

When it comes to standalone order management software, it focuses mainly on order processing and tracking, which also makes it a cost-effective solution for many businesses that don’t need extensive integrations.

Being user-friendly, it boasts numerous specialized features such as tracking, order routing, reporting, and more. The most popular examples include TradeGecko and Zoho Inventory.

4. Bundled Order Management Software

Businesses integrate bundled order management solutions with their software as a package. For instance, it includes point-of-sale (POS), CRM, or warehouse management systems.

This kind of approach minimizes the necessity of various software purchases. It provides a seamless data exchange between different components.

5. eCommerce Order Management Software

Order management solutions are tailored exclusively for many online retailers. It is capable of handling various unique challenges, including real-time inventory updates, multi-channel sales, and automated customer notifications.

You can integrate it perfectly with many eCommerce platforms such as eBay, Amazon, Shopify, and more. It ensures efficient order processing across several sales channels.

6. Dropshipping Order Management Software

As the name suggests, order management solutions are apt to cater to the needs of those businesses leveraging dropshipping models. It has diverse capabilities such as order routing, automating supplier communication, shipment tracking, and many more.

The software helps businesses acquire more customers by improving their operations instead of managing inventory.

Why Develop Custom Order Management Software?

Businesses need to develop custom order management software to get tailored solutions that can boost efficiency, streamline order processing, and improve customer satisfaction. It’s designed based on the specific needs and goals of businesses.

The major advantage of custom order management software is it can integrate perfectly with various existing systems like CRM and inventory management. Besides, it provides greater flexibility and allows businesses to adjust features as they change or grow.

Custom order management minimizes manual errors, enhances real-time reporting, boosts accuracy in tracking, and more. Businesses can optimize and automate the order lifecycle to improve their operational productivity, minimize costs, and deliver a personalized experience for many customers.

AI in Custom Order Management Software Development

Artificial Intelligence (AI) in order management software development can improve accuracy, efficiency, customer satisfaction, and more. The technology has an immense capability of automating order processes, predicting demand, and tracking inventory with the integration of ML and predictive analytics.

The technology is useful for optimizing routes, preventing errors, and managing stock levels, including order duplication. AI-powered software can offer personalized recommendations according to the behavior of customers, purchasing history, etc. It’s helpful in decision-making.

• Artificial Intelligence (AI) in order management software development improves accuracy, efficiency, customer satisfaction, and more.
• It automates order processes, predicts demand, and tracks inventory using ML and predictive analytics.
• The technology optimizes routes, prevents errors, and manages stock levels, including order duplication.
• AI-powered software offers personalized recommendations based on customer behavior and purchasing history.
• It supports better decision-making with actionable insights.

Other Technologies Used in Custom Order Management Software

Developers need to leverage a range of technologies when it comes to order management software development. They use technologies to add necessary features, functionalities, etc. Let’s find complete information regarding these technologies.

1. Cloud Computing

With cloud technology, businesses can access order management software from any location. It also allows them to minimize the infrastructure cost and gives them the ability to access real-time data from different devices.

It also facilitates easy integration with various cloud systems, which improves both data sharing and collaboration.

2. Machine Learning (ML)

ML algorithms have the ability to make predictions about various future trends, optimize order fulfillment, detect anomalies, and more. It can learn from historical data and thus can help businesses predict demand, enhance stock levels, and ensure on-time delivery. This kind of predictive capability can minimize errors and improve customer satisfaction.

3. Mobile Integration

Mobile integration lets businesses find endless possibilities, such as updating inventory, accessing order data, communicating with customers or suppliers, etc. It improves both operational efficiency and customer experience.

4. Blockchain

Blockchain offers a highly secure and transparent technique to track payments, orders, inventory, and more. It boosts trust and reliability by providing immutable records for transactions and can ensure full data integrity and minimize fraud.

5. Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

RPA has a vast capability of automating various repetitive and rule-based tasks even within the OMS, including data entry, order processing, invoice generation, and more. It can boost speed, minimize errors, and free up human resources for various strategic tasks.

Common Challenges in the Custom Order Management Software

Apart from several benefits, businesses also face a plethora of challenges as well when it comes to implementing order management solutions. We have explained some of these challenges below.

1. Inaccurate Order Processing

Any updated systems cause errors when it comes to order processing, though it includes cutting-edge software. Besides, data synchronization issues or human input mistakes also cause inaccuracy in order processing.

You need to understand that these kinds of inaccuracies can cause incorrect inventory levels, shipment delays, dissatisfied customers, and more. You can resolve these challenges when it comes to automating manual processes and real-time updates.

2. Integration Complications

Be it customer relationship management, inventory management, or enterprise resource planning software, order management systems can work smoothly with many other systems.

Meanwhile, getting smooth integration tends to be complicated mainly due to various compatibility issues or also differing data formats. An effective integration leads businesses to face risks like inefficiencies, data silos, and miscommunication across multiple departments.

3. Scalability Challenges

When a business grows, its requirements also grow in terms of order volumes, operational requirements, and more. You need to understand that most order management software often struggles to scale, which leads to processing errors, system slowdowns, or the necessity for expensive upgrades.

To address it perfectly, organizations should select solutions that are developed for handling growth and can adapt to future requirements.

4. Limited Customization

You need to understand that every business has some specific requirements for managing their orders. But, it’s also true that order management software platforms are not capable of providing sufficient customization options.

This kind of limitation encourages businesses to adapt their processes to the software in a better way. It leads to inefficiencies and minimizes operational effectiveness. Customizable solutions are indeed vital to align the software perfectly with various specific business requirements.

6 Industries that Benefit from Custom Order Management Software

Order management software is a quite necessary tool across multiple industries to improve customer experiences, streamline processes, optimize operations, and more. Let’s find out several industries that can get advantages from OMS:

1. Manufacturing

In the manufacturing industry, efficient order management offers a smooth production cycle. With order management software, manufacturers grab opportunities to track orders right from inception to delivery.

Besides, it also prevents production delays and maintains optimal inventory levels. Real-time data is useful to manage various supply chain complexities, which ensures the availability of raw materials when required and finished products on time. It increases productivity and reduces costs.

2. eCommerce

Order management software has become a backbone for many eCommerce businesses, especially for handling higher volumes of orders and matching customer expectations. It can integrate smoothly with many online platforms, which offer automated order confirmations, real-time inventory updates, multi-channel support, and more.

Order management software improves order accuracy, minimizes fulfillment time, and prevents any stockouts. It leads to enhanced customer satisfaction and can repeat business.

3. Food and Beverage

The food and beverage industry needs to track various perishable products, supply chains, etc. Order management software is capable of tracking expiry dates, managing inventory, ensuring timely delivery, and more.

It also offers full support for compliance with various food safety regulations and ensures businesses predict demand with a higher accuracy. Whether distributors, restaurants, or grocery stores, every business leverages OMS to track expiry dates, manage inventory, on-time delivery, and more.

4. Telecommunication

Telecommunication companies are capable of handling many products and services, including subscriptions, devices, upgrades, and more. Order management software has the immense capability of simplifying the process of managing these offerings by integrating inventory, customer data, billing systems, and more.

Order management software provides accurate order processing, streamlined customer interactions, fast activation of services, etc. These are capable of contributing to an improved customer experience and great operational efficiency.

5. Pharmaceuticals

Pharmaceutical industries use order management software to manage complex orders, track inventory, and ensure full compliance with several legal requirements. It also provides full support for the timely delivery of important medications, patient safety, and minimized efforts. It can optimize inventory to prevent any overstock or shortages.

6. Wholesale Distribution

With the use of order management software, wholesale distributors find it convenient to handle even larger volumes of orders across different product categories. The software has an immense capability of automating repetitive tasks, order processing, and offering real-time insights into delivery schedules and inventory. It provides order fulfillment with accuracy, improves relationships with retailers, and minimizes errors.

How to Choose the Right Custom Order Management System Development Company?

Selecting the top order management solutions for your business is pivotal to enhancing customer satisfaction, optimizing order processing, and improving operational efficiency. With so many available options, it’s indeed tough to choose the right one. We have compiled a list of some of the top order management software.

1. Know your Business Requirements

Before you choose order management solutions, it’s necessary to be aware of your actual business requirements. It’s advisable to keep in mind the volume of your orders, the size of your organization, the complexity of your operations, and more.
Once you identify these important requirements, it helps you guide you in selecting software that aligns perfectly with your specific business requirements. For instance, order management solutions for a small business may focus on simplicity, whereas larger enterprises may also need many cutting-edge features.

2. Focus on Important Features

It’s important to keep in mind that order management includes a wide range of features designed mainly to streamline various aspects of the order process. In the course of your selection process, you can focus on many features such as inventory management, order tracking, customer notifications, multi-channel support, reporting tools, and more.

If you are an owner of a multi-channel business, you need to select order management solutions that can handle orders from multiple platforms smoothly. Features such as returns management, real-time inventory updates, or customizable order workflow can improve your operational efficiency easily. To ensure you make the best choice, partnering with an experienced software development team is essential. When choosing a software development company, consider their expertise in multi-channel integration, their ability to customize solutions to meet your unique needs, and their track record of delivering reliable, scalable systems.

3. Check Integration Capabilities

The major aspect of order management solutions is their capability to integrate with other software. A smooth integration is necessary for a smooth data flow across multiple departments, whether it’s eCommerce platforms, ERP, or accounting software.

Make sure the OMS you select can integrate perfectly with your existing tools, including CRM, payment gateways, shipping carriers, and more. It reduces the overall chance of data discrepancies and also minimizes manual efforts. It finally boosts efficiency.

4. Determine Automation Capabilities

In order management, automation is of great importance. It’s advisable to find software that ensures automation in many important areas, including invoicing, order fulfillment, inventory updates, and notification.

Automation of many repetitive tasks allows for the minimization of efforts, increased speed of processes, and freeing up valuable time for your team. It also enables you to focus more on your strategic activities.

5. Ease of Use

Make sure the software you select is easy to use and intuitive for those team members who are not technically sound. A complex interface causes a steep learning curve and user frustration.

While shortlisting different order management systems, you should always see a demo or also for a trial period to visualize how conveniently your team can navigate the system.

6. Customization and Scalability

The software you choose for your business should scale with the growth of your business. You should always select order management solutions that include possibilities for customization and can scale properly with your organization.

It should be capable of improving workflow, incorporating additional features, and adding new user roles, as your business requires change.

7. Security

No matter what, security is of great significance, and one should always take it into account when selecting an OMS. It should offer full protection for handling confidential data, be it for personal information or payment details.

It’s important to ensure that software follows the latest security standards and regulations, including PCI-DSS or GDPR. Make sure your software includes features like secure login protocols, robust encryption methods, regular security updates, etc.

8. Robust Inventory Management

Powerful inventory management is one of the crucial features of order management solutions. It has the ability to manage backorders, track stock levels, ensure timely restocking, and more.

You can always go with the software that provides integration with suppliers, automatic stock alerts, real-time inventory tracking, and more. Efficient inventory management is pivotal to enhancing order fulfillment. It also works to prevent costly stockouts or overstock inventory.

Developing a Custom OMS: Step-By-Step Process

The development process of custom order management solutions involves a series of steps that serve some specific purposes. Let’s find complete details of all these steps.

1. Gathering Requirements

To start the development process of order management solutions, developers need to gather complete project requirements from businesses that need to develop this software. It involves gathering details about end-users, market scenarios, business goals, etc. It helps the development team to define the necessary functionalities of the product.

2. Designing

After gathering a complete order management software development requirement, the team then starts the next phase, e.g., design. This step involves gathering details into detailed blueprints for the entire system. The design phase mainly includes system architecture, user interface (UI) designs, database layouts, etc. It’s necessary to ensure the design is technically feasible and user-friendly.

3. Development

The order management software development step is the core step of the entire development process of OMS. This phase involves implementing functionalities, writing code, and implementing different system components.

The entire development team can work in close collaboration with product managers and designers to ensure the system can follow the defined requirements and various design specifications.

4. Testing

Stringent testing is necessary to check and resolve bugs, which ensures systems can match the required standards and verify that they function as desired. QA experts conduct different types of testing, including performance testing, integration tests, user acceptance testing, etc., to validate both performance and functionality.

5. Deployment

After resolving the bug, the newly developed software is deployed to the production environment. This step includes the configuration of the entire system for users, including final checks and more. Maintenance and post-deployment support are important to address any issues that take place after launch.

Custom Order Management Software Development Cost Breakdown

As far as the cost of order management software development is concerned, it can vary based on several factors such as features, complexity, development team’s location, and more. Let’s understand the software development cost associated with the same.

Best Practices for Successful Custom Order Management Software Development

Implementing the latest and ongoing practices is essential while developing an OMS to make it relevant and engaging. Following are some of the top practices you can implement while developing your software.

1. User-Centric Design

It’s essential to craft an easy-to-navigate and intuitive UI. A user-centric design can reduce training requirements and facilitate employees to do everything efficiently, be it resolving customer issues, tracking shipments, or processing orders. It’s advisable to focus on clarity and simplicity to improve user experience.

2. ERP Integration

A smooth integration with ERP is highly important. It offers smooth order data flow between different departments, right from inventory management to finance. Once you link order management with ERP, businesses can make the process hassle-free, minimize errors, and maintain an individual source of truth for all data.

3. Automation

Implementing automation within the software is essential for minimizing manual errors and enhancing speed. Be it inventory updates, automatic order processing, or invoicing, automation features are capable of increasing productivity, especially while minimizing the risk of human error.

4. Real-Time Data Synchronization

To keep information updated and ensure its accuracy, the systems should be able to support real-time data synchronization across different platforms such as shipping, inventory, sales, and more. It ensures every department works with the latest order inventory levels while preventing any stockouts and delays.

5. Mobile Accessibility

Mobile-friendly accessibility is essential for order management software, which lets employees manage orders on the go. Whether it’s warehouse staff, sales teams, or customer service representatives, every professional can access vital order information quickly from their mobile devices. It enhances both flexibility and responsiveness.

6. Security Compliance

As we already mentioned above, security is highly important for any software system, especially when it comes to handling various sensitive customer and payment details.

You should always follow the highest security standards, including the required regulations, which are necessary to ensure data protection. It also ensures full customer trust.

How The Ninehertz Can Help in Order Management System?

If you’re looking to build custom order management software, The Ninehertz is your ideal partner. With extensive expertise across industries like retail, logistics, and e-commerce, we deliver custom software development services to build the solutions integrated with real-time tracking, inventory management, and advanced analytics capabilities.

Leveraging cutting-edge technologies such as AI and IoT, The Ninehertz enhances efficiency, automation, and overall system performance. At the same time, the company prioritizes security and compliance to meet industry standards.

The Ninehertz is also known for creating intuitive, user-friendly designs that simplify operations for clients. Additionally, we provide exceptional post-deployment support, ensuring your system runs smoothly long after launch.

When you choose The Ninehertz for your custom order management software, you can expect significant growth and seamless operational improvements.

Conclusion

So, after going through the above guide, you now have complete information regarding Custom Order Management Software. You have also explored the way such software helps businesses in redefining their function, right? So, what are you waiting for? You can now go for the development of this software and find the right development partner who can create the software based on your business requirements, goals, etc.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. Who Can Use Order Management System?

Order management software is perfect for businesses of different sizes. It’s perfect for businesses from different industries, including wholesalers, eCommerce, manufacturers, retailers, and others. It offers various benefits to many logistics companies, such as customer order handling and smooth inventory tracking.

2. How is OMS Different from Procurement Software?

Order management System plays a crucial role in tracking and managing custom orders, thus ensuring proper fulfillment, customer satisfaction, etc. On the other hand, procurement software can be used to deal with different aspects of purchasing, sourcing, and supplier management.

3. Is Order Management Software Suitable for Small Businesses?

Yes, order management is appropriate for small businesses. It is able to perform a great number of activities, such as inventory tracking, order streamlining, customer management, and more. The procedure not only involves saving time but also minimizes manual mistakes, thereby improving efficiency.

4. Can Order Management System Integrate with Other Tools?

Yes, OMS can integrate with various tools such as CRM, ERP, and inventory management systems. This integration facilitates seamless data flow, minimizes manual tasks, and boosts overall efficiency.

5. How Does Order Management Software Improve Supplier Performance?

Order management helps suppliers boost their performance by enhancing order processing, minimizing errors, and ensuring accurate communication. It offers real-time visibility into orders and inventory. It ensures great coordination and on-time delivery.

6. Is OMS Cloud-Based or On-Premises?

Order management software is both cloud-based and on-premises. When you opt for a cloud-based platform, it offers scalability, accessibility, and cost-efficiency. On-premises software offers improved control and data security, which is apt for many industries.

7. How Do I Choose the Right Order Management Software for My Business?

Selecting the best OMS helps you assess your business requirements, including scalability, integration with existing systems, order volume, and more. You can focus on a user-friendly interface, analytics features, real-time tracking, and more.

8. How Long Does It Take to Implement Order Management Software?

The implementation of order management system generally takes 2 to 5 months. The exact period depends on many factors, such as customization requirements, system complexity, staff training, and data migration.

9. What Challenges Can Order Management Software Help Solve?

Order management software can address issues like order tracking errors, inaccurate inventory, and delayed order fulfillment. It revamps system processes, provides real-time updates, and reduces clerical errors while improving effectiveness.

10. Can Order Management System Help with Supplier Risk Management?

Yes, order management software can minimize supplier risk by providing real-time data on supplier performance, order tracking, and compliance monitoring. It acts as a hub for detecting potential risks like quality issues or delays early on.