When running a company based in the Promotional Merchandise sector, you must be mindful of what software you choose to run in order to maintain a level of efficiency in processing orders, and having reliable data archives. There is an ever growing demand for Promotional Product companies to offer more streamlined processes for customers and to keep up with what the competition offer. Here, I will aim to outline some choices available and provide advice as to how to aid in the selection of the right software for your business.

One of the first considerations that should be made by a Promotional Products supplier or distributor when looking at software should be too look at the current size of your company, and the size you realistically hope your company will be in the coming 5 years or so. If you end up buying a new package that works fine for 5 users, you will probably find that as your company grows, you outgrow the software very quickly, and it actually becomes a hindrance rather than a help.

The next consideration should be as to how a new software package can help improve the way your company works...this is where talking to staff helps, as they are the ones who use the current systems all for the majority of their working day. Listening to their ideas may not provide all of the answers, but it will give a clearer understanding of what processes are repeated the most often and can be candidates for streamlining. There are a few "off the shelf" packages available in the Promotional Merchandise industry that cater to different companies needs, and can make running the business with your preferred customers and suppliers an easier process. These packages usually have the support of well known Promotional Product Suppliers, who will provide a "dataset" containing all of their products, prices and images', meaning a customer's purchase order matches the suppliers system, reducing the amount of time it takes to process the order.

The difficulty with this type of package is that not all suppliers may support the system, or more commonly, the work required to make their data fit the software's format can be a long process and is likely to cause delays and periods where your system is not up to date. Another solution is to go for a non Promotional Gift industry specific package from well known multi-purpose suppliers like Sage or Goldmine, and have it tailored to suit your company's needs. This can be a more expensive option in the short term, but you can reap the benefits of having the freedom to mould the software to fit your organisation rather than the other way round.

There are a lot of options out there to any Promotional Gifts, or Promotional Pens supplier or distributor, and each company is going to have a different list of requirements for a software package. The main thing to remember is that your company is going to change over the years, and to make sure that your software is flexible enough to make these changes smooth, and more importantly to help your company grow.