Groundhog Day: Promotional Products Problems Repeat Themselves

The 1993 film "Groundhog Day," where Bill Murray lives the same day, the same problems, and the same outcomes over and over again, has made every February 2 synonymous with repetition.

This Groundhog Day, ask yourself: Is your business management system making the days feel a bit repetitive? Here are some factors that might be making your days feel a bit repetitive.

You have to enter, and re-enter, and re-re-enter data.

Solution: With integrated business management software, information flows automatically from one step to the next.

This is common for businesses using a mish-mash of software solutions. The various software pieces often aren’t integrated, so it takes constanct manual work to move information from one system to the next: from the ecommerce site to the back office to accounting, and so on. Aside from wasting time, every occasion that staff has to touch the information provides an opportunity to introduce an error, which will cost more time later.

You spend half your time following up with bad orders.

Solution: A product configuration engine helps ensure orders are complete and accurate right off the bat.

Purchase orders are far too often incomplete and inaccurate. Staff winds up spending as much as half its time following up just to get the order right. It ultimately costs time and money for the supplier, the distributor, and the end buyer. Orders need to start right and stay right. A business management system with a product configuration engine helps ensure all the order details are nailed down before the order is even placed.

Your staff is continually looking for information.

Solution: An integrated business management system can be the central repository for all of your important documents and information

Information is stored in file cabinets, in emails, in someone’s head – anywhere but where it’s easy to find. And workflow activities might come in the form of a phone call, or a post-it note, or an email, etc. The right business management software can centralize all of your important business documents, including artwork, and attach them to orders so that finding them is as easy as a few clicks.

Are you seeing a shadow?

Murray moved onto February 3 after he finally identified the repetitive problems and found solutions.

Endlessly re-entering data, following up with orders and looking for information can definitely make the days feel more repetitive than "Groundhog Day." So how do you get through to that next day where all you have to do is sell? Murray moved onto February 3 only after he identified the repetitive problems and found solutions.