3 ways batch tracking will improve your relationships with suppliers

While a lot of your business’s resources will always be focused on taking care of your customers and selling more, it is also essential that you maintain the best possible relationships with your suppliers too. After all, keeping your clients happy is always going to be linked to meeting their demand, and that in turn means that you need reliable and cost-effective suppliers to avoid out of stock situations.

Quality and quantity

Apart from ensuring that the supply chain flows efficiently, you rely on your suppliers to provide the highest quality of goods to your business in terms of both usability and shelf life. These factors are crucial to your relationship with your own suppliers as they’ll affect your relationship with your customers as well. Through the use of batch tracking software, you will have insights into product traceability.

Utilizing batch tracking

Batch tracking will facilitate stronger relationships through working closely and transparently with your suppliers. Through our own customer interviews, we have discovered that business owners appreciate the benefits associated with assigning goods into batches upon purchase, as it allows them to track specific batches in the event of any issues with them.

Here are three ways that batch tracking software will improve your relationships with your suppliers:

Product visibility in case of a recall

The bigger your client base, the more orders you’ll have to handle. With more sales, tracking down specific batches of the product during a recall can become increasingly difficult and time-consuming.

Until your business is able to locate affected batches of products, working with your supplier to resolve the problem is going to be challenging. However, with reliable batch tracking, you and your suppliers won’t have to spend so much time worrying about lot traceability.

Using an industry standard system as a part of your business’s batch tracking and inventory management processes will provide for all of the above. From identifying the SKU to tracing individual batches of product, both you and your suppliers will be assured of a smoother recall process.

Quality control across the board

As a wholesale business owner, you may be concerned around issues of quality control such as the quality of the product, shelf life, and expiry dates.

Batch traceability allows suppliers gain insights through improved transparency. While low quality batches may slip through your quality control with the bulk of your items, you’ll be able to quickly identify these problematic batches. With granular inventory visibility through batching information, you can work on creating an across-the-board quality control system that alerts both you and the supplier to any possible issues.

Improved business negotiations

Reliable batch tracking provides you with insights that are useful in assessing and negotiating with your suppliers. From issues surrounding quality and recalls to consistency in supply and their level of commitment to your business, a reliable inventory system will be gathering valuable information about how your suppliers are treating your business.

The data that is generated through batch tracking software is likely to be highly valuable in a number of ways:

• Access to an accurate picture of which suppliers are benefiting your business the most and areas for improvements with other suppliers.
• Place yourself in a strong negotiating position with your suppliers with detailed information on supplier performance.
• Establish favorable trading terms and exclusivity deals to ensuring consistent quality and prompt deliveries.
• Work with your suppliers to ensure the best results.

Working with your suppliers

When inventory management software has batch tracking capabilities, you can work with your suppliers to develop smoother supply chains. With a smoother supply chain that offers insights into product visibility, better quality control, and improved business negotiations, you’ll be able to work towards better supplier and buyer relationships.

Next: 

Batch and expiry date tracking for F&B businesses

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See also:

How to improve your negotiation skills and get better deals off suppliers

Evaluating suppliers - 10 things to look out for

Three tips to reduce your supplier lead time