Assessing the strategic role of enterprise labeling

As a strategic enabler for business and supply chain operations, companies are looking for ways to address evolving labeling requirements and scale their labeling across a global landscape. They’re aiming to control costs, maximize productivity, enable growth, and ensure they run as efficiently as possible. It’s become clear that labeling is how companies can make a measurable difference and ensure return on investment (ROI) as they chart a course for improvement.

Addressing cost control

Cost cutting and operational savings have become even more important business strategies as companies look to survive the economic climate brought on by COVID-19. Spending is scrutinized more than ever while organizations are challenged to remain competitive and respond to new, changing conditions. Labeling is one item where companies can improve the bottom line, especially as it threads throughout a company’s global operations and supply chain. With enterprise labeling and artwork management, businesses can avoid delays and downtime, eliminate redundancies, reduce fines and waste, and create a clear path toward growth and improved business processes. Additional cost savings come from reduced template management and administration, while shared content reduces labor overhead on reviews/approvals.

Measurable improvement

Labeling and packaging artwork directly impact production, supply chain investment, and time to market, so it’s important to have visibility throughout your entire end-to-end product packaging and labeling processes. It’s critical to track, report, and measure performance to identify any bottlenecks, issues, and inefficiencies which have led many companies to increasingly depend on advanced analytics and reporting from their enterprise labeling and artwork management solutions. Companies are interested in leveraging real-time analytics and reporting to drive improvements. They understand that when users can access advanced analytics they gain visibility into constantly changing and vital information including labels, printers, label status, users, and audit data. This enables new levels of efficiency with labeling and artwork processes.

A framework for success

A starting point for advancing labeling is understanding your capabilities and potential areas for growth. Businesses need to ensure their labeling requirements are optimized for business and supply chain efficiency, as well as future growth. Organizations can successfully create fully optimized labeling as part of their supply chain strategy by advancing maturity in various critical areas with fundamental capabilities such as standardization, centralization, automation, integration, compliance, and visibility & oversight. The first step in this journey is to understand your level of labeling maturity, and then, chart a course for the highest level that makes sense for your business.

Market leaders understand that when they take an enterprise approach to their labeling process, they significantly cut bottom-line costs. With an end-to-end solution that brings together enterprise labeling, packaging, and artwork, companies gain a competitive edge derived from speedy and efficient time to market. Additionally, these businesses reap the benefits of introducing a new level of automation to their supply chain.

Loftware
https://www.loftware.com

About the author: Josh Roffman is vice president of marketing and product management at Loftware. He has more than 25 years of marketing and product management experience with leading enterprise software companies. To connect with Loftware please email dlitzelman@loftware.com.