John Clark
The packaging Industry is going through a major transformation as competition heats up and markets remain stagnate. To compete companies must reduce cost, improve customer service, innovate design and deliver on time. The pressures companies are facing are forcing them to review all their workflows to achieve these goals and drive improved performance. These improvements manifest themselves in transformational Best practices.

Here a a few:

Making it easier to do business with your company 

Packaging manufacturers are providing online quotes and ordering. Enabling Customer Self-service with real time tracking of production and deliveries.

Going paperless

Electronic Proof of Delivery (iPad,tablet,phone)and automated invoicing delivers invoices immediately for improved cash flow by eliminating invoicing turn around time. Additionally this reduces the administration effort (Billing person) and could eliminate a position in companies where there are large quantities of orders. By going paperless for specs and scheduling in the plant companies can electronically collaborate from design to order fulfillment assuring that customer specs are perfect and orders arrive Just in Time.

Tighten up the sales process and enabling Mobile devices

Companies are implementing  sales force automation systems and workflow tools to automate the sales process from customer inquiry through design, sample making and quotations. This improved workflow gets the end user a more accurate, timely (and profitable) quote while providing the basic information necessary for the plant to initiate approvals and production. Salespeople are also becoming more like account managers and are assuming a much broader level of responsibility where they need access to continually updated customer information such as: orders, schedules, shipping and AR to grow an account and be part of the service paradigm. Today’s CRM systems have taken over for the good old days of personal touch and telephone calls.

Big Data and Analytics are replacing reports and excel spreadsheets

Historical information is becoming a thing of the past (pun intended) as companies have access to real-time data and sophisticated algorithms that can predict the future and alert you to trends. In addition to reports and graphs  analytic tools are crunching productivity, sales , logistics and financial information and present results anywhere anytime for an actionable response to improve a situation and outcome.

Finally companies are outsourcing non-core functions such as IT and payroll as plants try to better utilize team members strategically and attempt to get lean by reducing headcount. The migration to the Cloud is reducing IT spending, capex and human support needs as companies need access to a team of outsourced experts vs a single treaded expert.

Understanding your customers and your internal strengths and weaknesses are the first steps in redefining how you can operate at a higher level. Adopting new, better practices will rely on your commitment, people and stick-to-itiveness.