New Inventory App Brings Fishbowl to Smartphones and Tablets

Posted on January 25, 2012 by Robert Lockard

Fishbowl is going mobile thanks to a new inventory application for smartphones and tablets, and it’s getting some positive results. The company recently created the Fishbowl Developer Network to allow third-party developers to work with Fishbowl’s code and build new applications on top of its inventory management software platform.

A New Approach to Inventory Management

LilyPad for Fishbowl logo, Fishbowl Inventory BlogSeveral developers have already joined the Fishbowl Developer Network and started finding new possibilities for Fishbowl’s software. One of these developers is Sharpe Concepts. They created an inventory app called LilyPad for Fishbowl, which allows people to enter orders into Fishbowl Inventory on tablets and smartphones. That means companies don’t even need to use barcode scanners or have access to a desktop computer to place orders anymore.

A Win for Wine Sellers

LilyPad is proving to be a valuable tool for businesses. Noble House Wines, a high-end wine seller in New York, started using the inventory app in August 2011, and they’re impressed with how it’s working. The company serves many of the most famous restaurants in the world, so Noble House Wines representatives always have to be professional and fast to keep up with their clients’ needs.

LilyPad helps them accomplish both of these tasks in style.

“Because the application runs on smartphones that the reps already had, they were up on the new system immediately,” says Ted Wilson, Director of Operations at Noble House Wines. “Wine connoisseurs appreciate technology, as well, and the use of smartphones has given the sales reps an image boost with their clients.”

Looking Good Where It Counts

In addition to looking good in front of customers, sales reps are able to improve the behind-the-scenes action with LilyPad. “Now orders go directly into the Fishbowl system without going through an order entry person in the office,” Wilson says. “The amount of errors has been cut to almost zero and the turn time is minutes.” This makes the company look really good where it counts – in its order fulfillment and customer service.

Instead of viewing inventory management as something that should only be left to specialists in the warehouse, sales reps can see what a powerful impact it has on their jobs.

Start using LilyPad’s inventory app on your tablet or smartphone by clicking the LilyPad for Fishbowl link above right now!

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Fishbowl CMO Named One of Utah’s Top Marketers of 2011

Posted on January 23, 2012 by Robert Lockard

Chalk up one more to the list of awards Fishbowl won last year. Kirk Tanner, Fishbowl’s Chief Marketing Officer, was recently honored by Utah Business magazine as one of Utah’s most effective sales and marketing experts in 2011.

Kirk Tanner, Fishbowl's Chief Marketing OfficerThis is the first year the magazine gave out its SAMY Awards (which stands for Salespeople and Marketers of the Year). Twenty executives from some of Utah’s largest and fastest-growing businesses were on this list. In addition to Fishbowl, the businesses include Zions Bank, EnergySolutions, and Larry H. Miller Sports. That’s good company to be in.

The Importance of Online Marketing

Being a marketer myself, I might be a little biased about the importance of good marketing. So I’ll let the Utah Business article speak for me: “Sales and marketing professionals are often referred to as the lifeblood of a company’s success. In our inaugural SAMY awards program, we celebrate the sales and marketing gurus who have had a direct, measurable impact on their company’s bottom line.”

Right now is a great time to be in business. There are so many tracking tools and opportunities to collect data that a lot of the guesswork has been taken out of marketing. The success of Fishbowl’s online marketing efforts can be easily seen in its overall success in the past few years.

“Due in large part to Tanner’s remarkable use of pay-per-click tactics, careful attention to SEO and innovative social media campaigns, Fishbowl achieved 176-percent sales growth from 2006-2010 and was on target for 86-percent growth in 2011,” the article notes. “Additionally, the cost per lead was cut by 30 percent since the beginning of 2010.”

Planning Ahead

Of course, in order to get impressive results, you have to put forth a lot of effort. And Kirk is definitely up to the challenge. He’s a strategic thinker, and he’s always looking for ways to improve. Here’s how he describes it: “Most consumers view marketing as just the slick advertising, packaging, logos and collateral they see, not realizing the amount of science behind the final execution. There is a great deal of data collection and analysis that needs to be done to understand the market and target audience.”

Thanks to Fishbowl’s strong leadership and customer-centric focus, we continue to offer the best inventory management software for small and midsize businesses. Sign up for an online inventory software demo to see how it can help your business.

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They Don’t Make ‘em Like They Used to (Thank Goodness!)

Posted on January 18, 2012 by Robert Lockard

“They don’t make ‘em like they used to” is an ambiguous phrase to me. It can mean two things: either the end products aren’t the same as they used to be, or the way those products are made isn’t the same.

The evolution of the telephone from telegram to cell phone, Fishbowl Inventory BlogThis is usually a lament about how things are so much more complex or lower quality nowadays, but I have a different interpretation. To me, it means that companies are no longer doing things in an inefficient old manner. Instead, they are replacing outdated systems with innovative new ones that can do the job better than before.

I touched on this in my last blog post about the state of manufacturing. Efficiency is a good thing! It lowers the cost of doing business and allows companies to produce more and higher-quality products in a shorter amount of time.

Old habits die hard, however. Business leaders need to stick with new ideas and tools for a while to see how useful they truly are. For example, it can take a little while to learn how to use manufacturing inventory software and get the majority of your employees comfortable with using it in their daily routine. But once you’ve put forth the effort, you should see positive results for years to come.

That’s because manufacturing inventory software saves time and money by helping manufacturers run their operations more smoothly and cut out waste. No more guesswork about which products are the top sellers, what parts they need to reorder or how many to keep on hand. Those tasks are taken care of automatically, so leaders can focus on other important parts of their businesses.

So the next time someone says, “They don’t make ‘em like they used to,” you can enthusiastically respond, “I know. Thank goodness!”

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What’s in Store for Manufacturing in 2012

Posted on January 16, 2012 by Robert Lockard

What’s in store for manufacturing in 2012? Quite a bit! It looks like we can expect even more manufacturing jobs to return the United States as Chinese wages keep rising and the cost of shipping materials to and from China gets more expensive.

Coming soon to the manufacturing industry, Fishbowl Inventory BlogIn the article “Get Ready for Manufacturing’s Big Comeback,” it notes that 85 percent of the 3,000 manufacturing executives surveyed “expected at least some kinds of factory work to return to the U.S. from overseas.” However, many of the jobs that come back to this country will probably be much different than ones traditionally associated with manufacturing.

We could see a completely new manufacturing job market in just a few years. Over the past few decades, manufacturers have laid off a large number of workers and replaced them with automated machines, which are much more cost-efficient. This may have seemed like a negative thing at the time, but what it was really doing was making manufacturers more profitable and forcing them to hire more college-educated engineers to oversee their increasingly complex operations.

As manufacturing turns into a more educated profession, it will likely attract even more innovators and people with the skills to put radical ideas into practice. Instead of worrying about the number of jobs in their industry, manufacturers should focus their attention on the types of jobs available to them. By gaining high-tech skills, they’ll have a better chance of making it in the new manufacturing industry.

A retweet by @KnightGlobal inspired this blog post. I haven’t given enough credit to the tweeters who have inspired my posts in the past. I’ll do a better job of recognizing them from now on. That’s one of my New Year’s resolutions.

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Top 10 Most Popular Fishbowl Blog Posts of 2011

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Robert Lockard

I’ve never done a post like this before on this blog. It’s basically a review of things I’ve already written. But since I’ve published 172 posts on the Fishbowl Inventory Blog since June 2010 (98 in 2011 alone), I figure it’s a good idea to look back for just a minute and reflect on which were the most popular last year.

Top 10, Fishbowl Inventory BlogSo here are the top 10 most-viewed blog posts of 2011. I’ll also comment on what I find most interesting about them and/or how surprising it is that they made it on this list. FYI: Not all of them were published in 2011; I’m just basing their ranking on total views in that year:

1. I Didn’t Know Fishbowl Is Shaped Like a Boomerang

This was a major shock for me. I wrote this post right after coming back to Fishbowl, and I had no idea it would resonate with so many people. I made a big mistake when I thought I could find a better place to work than Fishbowl, and luckily they welcomed me back with open arms. I invite you to learn from my mistakes by reading this blog post and taking its lessons to heart.

2. Finding the Best Inventory Management Solution – Part 1

Some people ask me how I keep coming up with new ways to talk about inventory management software over and over. The answer is that I usually just try to answer a question I have, and I end up with a compelling blog post. This is a good case in point.

3. Succeed on eBay with Inventory Management Software

I’m often asked to write about challenging topics. eBay inventory management software is definitely a unique one. With this one, I was still in my really playful stage of writing about inventory management software, so I had quite a bit of fun turning a potentially dry post into one with a little spunk.

4. Episode 1: Fishbowl Security Basics

What do you know, a guest blog post made it into the top 5! I’m excited to see more and more of my Fishbowl coworkers and other industry experts contributing posts to the Fishbowl Inventory Blog. Aaron Wignall is an IT wizard, and he has a lot of helpful advice to share in this post about protecting your business information.

5. Need a Reorder Point Calculator? Here You Go!

Apparently reorder point calculators are really popular, especially when they’re totally free and easy to use. I’m pleased to see that so many people have found this post and put Fishbowl’s reorder point calculator to good use in helping them figure out the right time to order more products.

6. Homer Simpson’s Top 10 Inventory Management Tips – Part 1

One of my coworkers challenged me to write a blog post that would be interesting enough for him to read just for fun. I took up his challenge and came up with something both hilarious and surprisingly informative. Who knew The Simpsons could be educational?

7. Getting a Jump on New Year’s Resolutions

Another guest blog post! Ian Bird, Fishbowl’s HR expert, gave a little insight into all the kindness and fun in Fishbowl’s corporate culture. He also shared some good goals for all of us to strive for in 2012 and beyond.

8. This Looks Like a Job for INVENTORY MAN…agement

Okay, with this one I was really having fun. I came up with clever inventory-related names for characters in the Superman comics, and I wrote an entertaining story to illustrate several points about inventory management. This post is part one of the four-part story, so be sure to read all of them.

9. How to Manage Your Inventory Like Big Companies

This was long before I started talking about enterprise resource planning (ERP) as a good solution for midsize businesses. It’s interesting to go back and see how the ideas I used in this post were later molded and focused better.

10. 10 Generic Foods That Taste Better Than Name Brands

Speaking of which, here’s my first real foray into talking about ERP systems and why they’re important to midsize businesses. To broach the topic, I decided to use a fun and useful analogy: generic vs. name-brand foods. You get the same taste and quality for a lower price, just like how Fishbowl Enterprise offers all the inventory and accounting features for a fraction of the price of big-name ERPs.

There you have it, my list of the top 10 most popular posts on the Fishbowl Inventory Blog in 2011. I’ve got plenty more ideas for things to write about in 2012, so expect even more exciting posts right here all year long!

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Check Out the New Fishbowl Enterprise Website

Posted on January 10, 2012 by Robert Lockard

Have you heard about the new Fishbowl Enterprise website? It has lots of information about what an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system for midsize businesses should contain. It turns out you don’t have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars every year to gain access to a top-of-the-line ERP. Fishbowl Enterprise gives you everything you need for a much lower price than other solutions.

Fishbowl Enterprise logo, Fishbowl Inventory BlogFlexible Options

Because each company has different needs, Fishbowl has made its ERP system both lean and flexible. It comes with these essentials:

  • Inventory control software
  • Accounting software
  • Manufacturing solution
  • Warehouse management software
  • Seamless integration between these programs

As your business grows and you start facing new challenges, you can add other features to Fishbowl Enterprise, including:

  • Point of sale software and hardware
  • Customer relationship management (CRM) solution
  • Third-party server hosting and data security
  • Data backup services

A Small Sample

This is just a small sample of everything you’ll find on the Fishbowl Enterprise website. You can learn about all of the features listed above, and you can also find technical support, an introductory video and a custom tour of the ERP system. We’ll be adding even more pages over time, too. I wrote pretty much all the content you’ll find on the site, so you know it’s going to be interesting to read.

So go ahead and click the link above to start exploring our website and see if Fishbowl Enterprise is the ERP system you’ve been looking for.

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Wyatt ERP, New Sheriff on the Digital Frontier

Posted on January 6, 2012 by Robert Lockard

The name’s Wyatt ERP. I’m the law out here on the digital frontier, and I’m here to clean up your company’s books.

Old West sheriff badge, Fishbowl Inventory BlogWhat does the ERP stand for in my name, you might be wondering? I’ll tell you: Enterprise resource planning. Now I’ll explain what an ERP system does for your business and how it helps you create a little law and order in your recordkeeping.

Track Your Inventory

Inventory is like a herd of cattle. If you don’t watch it constantly it can get out of hand in a hurry. And let me tell you stampeding inventory is not a pretty sight. I’ve seen whole companies trampled under the weight of their expensive and imbalanced inventory.

But with the help of yours truly, Wyatt ERP, you can track your inventory no matter where it might be. You can monitor the progress of shipments on their way to your warehouse and to your customers. You’ll also have all the tools you need to make sure you keep just the right number of products in stock at all times in your warehouse.

Tame Your Finances

Do you feel like your finances are running too fast and you’re struggling to rein them in before they crash? Thank goodness I got here just in time. It’s time to tame your finances with the latest accounting software.

One of the best things about my accounting solution is that it integrates with my inventory tracking software and all the other parts of my ERP system. That saves you the hassle of putting the same data in multiple places. When you update one part of my software, every other part is automatically updated with the same information. Taming your finances doesn’t have to be as hard as breaking wild horses when you’ve got me around.

Dangerous World

It’s a dangerous world out here on the digital frontier, and you have to be prepared for all sorts of dangers and adventures. That’s why you should have me, Wyatt ERP, on your side at all times. I’ll help you track inventory, tame your finances, manage multiple warehouses and do much more. Get a custom tour of my ERP system today to see all the things I can do for you!

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Fishbowl Pays Back Million-Dollar Loan 7 Years Early

Posted on January 4, 2012 by Robert Lockard

I don’t care if this sounds cheesy. I’m proud to work for a company that is as dedicated to staying out of debt as I am! Fishbowl finished pulling off a miracle by paying back its million-dollar loan from Zions Bank seven years ahead of schedule last Thursday.

You can read about it in a KSL News article and see it happen in this video:

Though it hardly compares to what Fishbowl has accomplished, I would like to share my own story of getting out of debt. I graduated from college with $3,000 of student loan debt. I’ve heard that that’s small compared to what many other people usually have, but it worried me to no end knowing that I didn’t have enough money to pay it all back. I felt stuck. After six months of job hunting, I finally got my big break and landed a great job. Before I had been out of college a year I had completely paid back my student loan along with just a little bit of interest. It felt so good to be free from that pressing obligation.

Debt to me is like dishes. When there are a couple plates and spoons in the sink, no one thinks to clean them because it seems so trivial. But when they start piling up, people come up with new excuses for not cleaning them: there are just too many, and it would take forever to get through them all!

Whether a loan is a paltry $3,000 or a giant $1 million, the temptation is there to just ignore it or, worse, pretend that you have more money than you actually do by spending the cash you take in on other things. Both of these actions can lead to ruin.

I echo David Williams’ and Mary Scott’s sentiments about the importance of working towards being debt-free both in personal and professional life. Thank you, Zions Bank, for helping Fishbowl reach independence by lending us the money when we really needed it. And thank you, Fishbowl leaders and employees, for living up to the bank’s trust and paying off the loan in a spectacular way.

Now that this burden is off our shoulders, we can concentrate even more on offering superb inventory control software and better serving our customers in 2012 and beyond!

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See Fishbowl’s Point of Sale Solution in Action

Posted on January 2, 2012 by Robert Lockard

Here is a video of Kendrick Hair, a Fishbowl product manager, explaining how to use Fishbowl’s point of sale solution SalesPoint in your business. He also shows why it’s so important to have a user-friendly POS system to help you accept payments through customers’ cash, checks and credit cards. Enjoy!

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The Right Way to Set Business Goals

Posted on December 28, 2011 by Robert Lockard

Setting goals is an essential part of running a successful business because if you don’t aspire to anything then you’ll never grow. So let’s talk about how to set good goals.

Two men setting goals on a chart, Fishbowl Inventory BlogI’ll start with a couple of bad goals: I’d like to make all of my customers happy and make my business more profitable. The things the goals are aiming for are good, but the way they’re worded is terrible. The problem is they’re too general and difficult to measure. Sure, you can measure profitability, but this particular goal doesn’t say anything about how to achieve it. It sounds more like a wish.

Measure Your Progress

The first thing you have to do is add a way to measure your success or failure. What do we mean by “making customers happy” or “be more profitable”? What are some things that are keeping us from accomplishing these goals? We need to identify those trouble spots and then come up with a plan to fix them.

With this in mind, let’s improve our goals: I’d like to reduce late shipments by 50 percent and reduce wait times for customers who call in to under a minute. This will improve my customer service and make customers happier. I’d also like to cut my inventory costs by 30 percent, double my inventory turnovers, and speed up my manufacturing processes by 10 percent. This will help my company be more profitable.

These are better, but they’re still not perfect. They need something else.

Set a Time Limit

These goals are missing a time element. You can make a lofty goal like “I want to lose 10 pounds,” but if it doesn’t have a time limit, you can just keep putting it off indefinitely. Time limits give a sense of urgency to goals and they also make it easier to tell whether or not you’ve achieved your goals. If a goal is taking longer to reach than you planned, maybe your strategy needs to be revised to reach it faster, or maybe the goal was unrealistic to begin with.

So if we add a time limit, the goals would now be: I’d like to reduce late shipments in the next week by 50 percent from the previous week and reduce wait times for customers who call in to under a minute within three months. I’d also like to cut my inventory costs by 30 percent within four months, double the number of inventory turnovers I have in a year, and speed up my manufacturing processes by 10 percent within two months.

Now all the pieces are in place. All you need now is a plan to make these goals happen.

Make It Happen

To make these goals happen, you need to use tools that help you measure your performance and produce results fast. It’s a good idea to use Fishbowl’s inventory tracking software to help you track orders and shipments to make sure they get to their destination. It can even indirectly reduce the number of customers who call in wondering when their packages will arrive. This will reduce the wait times for the ones who do call.

Fishbowl Inventory also helps you figure out the optimum inventory level so you can dramatically reduce your storage costs and the amount of money you have tied up in inventory. This can also lead to more annual inventory turnovers. Plus, Fishbowl’s multilevel bills of materials, work orders and other manufacturing tools help you speed up the manufacturing process and get products out the door faster.

The next time you’re thinking about what goals to set, make sure they’re measurable and tied to a specific timeframe. And get the right tools to make them happen. If you’re a small or midsize business, you’ll find many of those tools in Fishbowl Inventory. Sign up for a free inventory software demo to learn more.

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