In this edition of 8 Minutes with Activ8, we’re joined by Ben Kaye, Business Development Manager at our partners at Access Mintsoft. Access Mintsoft is a cloud-based order management system (OMS), warehouse management system (WMS), as well as a courier integration solution. Providing real-time updates on orders, inventory, and shipments, the software helps online retailers and 3PLs to deliver more responsive and consistent service, with the ultimate aim of delivering a great customer experience

In our session with Ben, we discuss warehouse and order management systems, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the company and its customers, and the latest about what’s coming from Mintsoft.

For the viewers who may be unaware, can you tell us about Mintsoft and the solutions you offer?

Firstly thank you for having us. Primarily, Mintsoft is a warehouse and order management system with all the things you’d expect, from knowing where stock is, what’s due and what’s running low, to order management with pick and pack dispatch processes. The difference with Mintsoft is the 3PL aspect, where if you’re a warehouse you can offer storage or fulfilment services to clients or customers of yours; Mintsoft can offer the functionality to keep them on a separate, individual basis and automate the billing. A good way to summarise it would be WMS and OMS, but with a 3PL twist.

Being in the e-commerce and fulfilment areas, how has the COVID-19 pandemic affected your company? Has the uptake in online commerce impacted the day-to-day at Mintsoft?

Of course, across the entire e-commerce industry, there has been a huge impact, and that has rolled over to us as providers of solutions for the industry. We’ve had to increase teams across the product, including sales, onboarding, support and development. There’s been a massive growth internally for Mintsoft, as well as increased demand for the system from consumers.

What would you say are some of the platform features that clients are particularly engaging with during this period? Would you say there’s been a shift in the types of questions and inquiries that existing or potential clients are asking over the past year?

One, in particular, is barcode scanning, with inquiries from both existing and new customers. From the conversations I’ve had, picking inefficiencies were expected to go up in line with order volumes, however, there appears to be this multiplier effect: where you’ve got someone doing 10,000 orders a month at 1% inefficiency (i.e. 100 mispicks) and they double order volumes during the pandemic, you would expect 20,000 orders to have 200 mispicks. Actually, they end up somewhere in the region of 300-500 mispicks per month, which is of course very costly.

Barcoding has therefore become essential for many. Many have even begun to consider getting a system in place from scratch solely on the basis of needing assistance with barcoding. This is definitely a big trend across all our customers.

Do you think there’s been a change in how people view your offerings compared to before the pandemic started?

I think many people before would have primarily viewed Mintsoft as something that would be able to help them pick orders prior to the pandemic, and that was many people’s interpretations of what order management systems can do. As the pandemic began many people thought that they could handle the increased demand, but the snowball effect of handling the logistics of increased stock management is noticeable across the whole warehouse. Stock is stored, picked, and replenished at a faster rate, therefore, people soon realise is something they need a system to handle the increased demand.

The past year has been a hectic period for most companies, so is there a project on the horizon that you are particularly excited about at Mintsoft?

There are definitely a few, without naming names! The past twelve months have been heavily focused on adapting the system. We’re experiencing new demand and new requirements to cater to for existing clients, and also have new customers with their own unique requirements that we develop to and adapt to.

Plus Brexit, of course, and the changes we need to cater to with regard to that. We have very much been focused on adapting rather than pushing forward. With the bulk of that behind us and a larger development team, we are back to looking forward and pushing forward to the period ahead. There are a few things hidden in the development roadmap that we’re looking forward to, so it’s definitely a “watch this space” situation.

Before we go, I just wanted to ask whether there are any final words of wisdom or thoughts you would like to share with our viewers?

I would say let’s settle into this with regard to e-commerce growth. A lot of people early days thought this would be a spike that would come back down, but e-commerce was always on this upward trajectory naturally and I think has just added more momentum. But we are simply where we were always meant to be on the curve, just ahead of schedule. Take your coats off, settle in, and make sure you are suited to this new volume and demand as it will continue.