Uniform Management System, often abbreviated as UMS, is a secure eProcurement platform used by uniform manufacturers, distributors, and retailers to provide organizations with a large workforce, a centralized portal to manage end-to-end employee uniform needs. It helps businesses streamline, automate and improve the otherwise time-intensive ordeal of uniform procurement while offering employees the convenience of having all things uniform in one place.
Unlike a regular eCommerce website that is publicly accessible, uniform management systems are tailor-made for every business in accordance with their stipulated uniform rules and can only be accessed by authorized employees and company staff in charge of managing the uniforms.
A 2018 study reported that 60% of the global workforce wears uniforms to work every day. The number has been only been steadily creeping up, reaching an exponential high in select industries in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
For instance, uniform businesses catering to frontline workers and medical professionals faced an unprecedented surge in demand during the pandemic that forced them to ramp up production. Hospital chains, clinics, and diagnostic centers, since the outbreak of the coronavirus, have become extremely conscientious about the uniforms their employees wear to work.
They are even going the extra mile to make sure that every employee receives the right uniform kit assigned to them based on their job role. Not only that, large hospitals with a vast employee base have resorted to customized online uniform programs to provide employees with a hassle-free uniform ordering system. All employees have to do is log in to the employee uniform store using his/her credentials and they will be able to see products assigned to them. The uniform programs are so designed that employees can use company allowances, payroll deduct, and a host of other payment options to place an order, thus making it utterly convenient for buyers.
This streamlined way of uniform delivery via an eCommerce platform that helps both businesses and buyers cut down on manual operation, eliminate wrong orders and put a tight lease on uniform expenditure, is facilitated by uniform management systems.
Uniform management systems integrate with the customer’s ERP & HRMS systems through rest APIs to deliver a hyper-personalized uniform buying experience to employees. Right from the products they can access, to the many ways they can pay for the order, to the number of uniform items they can add to the cart – everything can be controlled and customized using the right UMS.
Apart from the healthcare industry, the following industries have also adopted enterprise uniform program solutions to iron out the wide-ranging complexities of uniform delivery in the B2B spectrum.
While catering to the uniform needs of thousands of employees, suppliers often struggle to track and fulfill incoming orders. Without a robust uniform management system, it’s the sales team who would have to be on their toes always, keeping a close eye on incoming orders, entering them into the ERP, and seeing them through to fulfillment. Not only is that process time-intensive, but also error-prone, which may in turn cost the supplier a huge amount of money in reverse logistics.
With an in-built order management system, uniform business can get rid of all those challenges to:
EMPLOYEE-CENTRIC E-COMMERCE FOR SIMPLIFIED ORDERING EXPERIENCE FOR END USERS
A B2B uniform buyer at work is perhaps a B2C buyer at home and there’s no denying the fact that they all expect an Amazon-like experience when buying uniforms online from their company-branded store.
In fact, that’s really the need of the hour. Online user behavior is rapidly evolving. Buyers no longer stick to one place or gadget while checking out the things they want to buy. And unless the website/brand offers them a truly seamless experience spanning multi-devices, it’s hard to earn a sale.
Fortunately, advanced uniform management systems are able to replicate the same B2C-like engagement across employee uniform stores by leveraging employee data and crafting a stellar buying experience.
Here are some of the most important ways uniform management systems pave way for a simplified buying experience for employees-
For uniform suppliers, catering to B2B/B2C businesses with large employee bases can be an extremely resource-sapping exercise. Manually collecting orders, updating actions and other such tasks can be utterly frustrating and can lead to errors.
On the other hand, leveraging the power of digital to streamline, automate and manage uniform programs for large organizations using enterprise uniform management solutions will help you scale with speed and precision, save time and money, and surpass customer expectations.