The Expert Guide to Omnichannel Order Management and Fulfillment

As the 2020 pandemic highlighted the need for advanced retail omnichannel order management and fulfillment capabilities, order management systems (OMS) have become one of the most sought-after retail technologies. Further, many consumer brands implemented or expanded their direct-to-consumer (DTC) channels, necessitating new or more robust order management capabilities.

Fast forward to today. The front-end, customer-facing component of most order management systems and processes is in place and supporting transactions. However, many companies still struggle with back-end inventory optimization and execution, which erodes margins. Order management systems are key enablers in inventory optimization execution. The ability to use a single system to link demand signals from multiple channels to a company’s supply resources (i.e., inventory) and maximize margin retention is a key capability sought by retailers looking to improve profitability.

Successful order management and fulfillment as an end-to-end business process reaches beyond a single system or functional area and is tightly integrated across the enterprise. As Gartner validates, “Much of the functionality attributed to order management is embedded within and touches components within the CRM, ERP, and SCM markets as it guides products and services through order entry, processing, and tracking.”

In this expert guide, supply chain and PMO expert Dave Birdsall, along with retail omnichannel expert Rob Oglesby, take an in-depth look at end-to-end omnichannel order management and fulfillment capabilities. The two industry experts outline the considerations and implications of developing or expanding this strategic capability from both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) perspectives.