How Much Does It Cost to Develop an Order and Inventory Management Solution?

Geopolitical events have fuelled what appears to be a perpetual storm of disruption for supply chains. Indispensable changes in markets, consumer behavior, and supply chains are ready to throw companies off balance. This challenging reality will begin to experiment with leaders’ ingenuity, resilience, and flexibility. The downright scale and intensity of change require rapid responses. 

Leaders must acquire agile operating methods, expedite value chain transformation, and have solid data and analytics abilities. Such industry-centric powers are pivotal to comprehending complexity, foreseeing conceivable disorder, and quickly concocting a riposte. In doing so, these leaders must mandate the assimilation of technology powerhouses. The ones with the competencies to decipher the issues and maintain the status quo while intelligently automating the existing systems. 

With their often-chosen supply chain software development services, leaders and C-suites can inflict much-needed change with the widely accepted inventory management systems. These systems are restructuring the newfangled supply chain industry by reducing expenditures, preventing overspending on warehouse storage, forecasting sales trends, and embellishing accuracies. Since the stirred conversation has helped us comprehend it, it would be better to bifurcate the guide and apprehend the adjoining inventory management software development cost.

What is an Inventory Management Software?

Beginning with the basics, inventory management software is imperative for managing, processing, and reporting businesses that utilize it to monitor inventory. The order and inventory management software includes aggregate from the point of purchase through product manufacturing, tracking and warehousing, sales, and shipping. This does indicates that it operates as an all-in-one supply chain solution for managing the entire system.

Moreover, the inventory management system solution facilitates organizing products and expenses. Equipping business owners with an unambiguous assertion of their product costs, the order management solution fortifies them to make informed decisions, enhancing their financial management.

We bring data that signifies how inventory management software is forward-looking in the global market, solidifying its necessity. The table below represents the market revenue in billions from 2016 to the anticipated year 2028.

The indicative data mandates impending market growth, which incites leaders to revise their existing decisions as soon as possible.

Step-By-Step Process for Building an Inventory Management System

As businesses consider building inventory management software, it becomes mandatory to comprehend the systematic development approach. This requires planning the project, hiring a software development company, perhaps a technology partner overall, and moving along the milestones throughout.

You must be questioning the right and organized flow of inventory management software development with the structured and efficient phase segmentation, which we summarize to assist you. 

• Define Your Inventory Management System Requirements

The priority task for order and inventory management software development is not jumping straight to development but planning the solution, which is much needed. Aspects like the assessment of user behavior, the needs of the warehouse, shipping and inventory staff, market trends, upturning business outcomes, and issue resolution capabilities are essential. These aspects assist in forming a concrete inventory management software idea that is the call for your supply chain enterprise.

• Hire an Inventory and Order Management Software Development Company

Next is selecting the order management software development company with intricate supply chain experience. The process of finding the right development partner can be tricky, but with enough time and thought-processing, you can locate the one that aligns with your requirements. When you fixate on your development partner, provide them with the project-centric documents for comprehension, set the pre-defined development timeline, and hasten the process with a green signal.

• Devising Through Manufacturing Inventory Management System UI/UX Design

With your software development partner, your inventory management software design begins devising. The software designers power through understanding the requirements, the vision and objective, and the much-needed user-engaging factors to concoct the UI/UX design layout fitting the software. Keeping layman-friendliness, information accessibility, and elevating retention rate factors in mind, they wireframe the ideal design for your validation.

• Working on Order and Inventory Management Software Development

The software development team begins the development phase as soon as the UI/UX layout is validated. The front-end, back-end, database, API integration, and many other essential processes are aligned to build competent source code for the inventory management system. During this phase, the core is considered the proper functioning unit of features and functionalities while ensuring the performance of the system.

• Assessing Inventory Management Software with Quality Assurance

Once the development team has submitted the source code, the software reaches the quality analysts for the testing phase. As nothing reaches perfection before testing, the core functionality of this phase is to ensure the inventory management software is error-free while focusing on performance. With the constant back-and-forth between the development and QA teams, the software reaches perfection and prepares for deployment. 

• Manufacturing Inventory Management System Deployment in the Market

Once the order and inventory management software is validated on your end for further launch, the deployment team begins meeting the guidelines essential for the supply chain industry. Preparing the software for the market launch for the users and integrating it in the place of the current system begins. Once done with the process, the deployment informs you about the same, and it is ready for the users and company to use.

• Post Order and inventory management solutions Development Maintenance

Reaching the deployment is not the last phase of the process. Post-development maintenance becomes the previous step for the continued smooth functioning of the inventory management software. From fixing bugs and errors to updating the software with in-trend market-centric features are the services that your development partner provides you after the launch. 

Software-Based Factors Affecting Manufacturing Inventory Management Solution Development Cost

As the process indicates different phases, it highlights that the inventory management software development cost depends on multiple factors. The phases, the software-based aspects, and the ones centric to the software development company. Steering the narrative to the software development cost is what you need as a decision-maker. With the necessity for capital investment assessment, let us elaborate on the factors influencing the inventory management software development cost in the foreseen inquiry phase.

• Inventory Management System Cost Based on Technology Stack

Pinpointing the technology stack can be tricky with diverse plans in mind. However, once finalized, the technology stack is among the factors that influence the cost of inventory management system development. The choice of language for front-end and back-end, the framework needs, the database, and the API inclusion differ in cost and eventually affect the conclusive cost.

• Warehouse Management System Cost Based on Size

As the concern of inventory management solution development cost continues, the next influencing factor is the size of the software. The more features and functionalities are included, the higher the eventual software development cost. For instance, inventory management software for small businesses with basic needs may cost less than the software needed by enterprise-grade companies. The following table reflects the cost of inventory management software based on their size.

• Software Development Cost Estimation Based on UI/UX Design

As we have mentioned above, the UI/UX design phase requires in-depth research of multiple factors that contribute to building a distinctive layout for admins, users, and customers. This is the case when supply chain businesses and enterprises decide on custom services. When choosing the templates available, the same can be achieved with less effort and money. Since there are two options, the cost variation regarding the UI/UX design strategy is also different. 

• Cost-Based on Inventory Management Software Features

As mentioned above, the features and functionalities influence the inventory management solution development cost. Every feature chosen is essential and requires comprehension and effort from the software developer. For instance, the inventory software with reporting analytics would cost different from the one that includes barcode scanning. As this reflects the feature distinction, the table below can assist you in making the decision based on the feature’s pricing.

• Software Development Costs Based on Types

Another contributing factor that eventually affects the cost of inventory management software development is the type of software you choose. Considering that diverse departments work together, a supply chain business does not necessarily need one kind of software in place. One supply chain business may require order management software, and the other would require tracking software. Since the needs are different, so are the type of software used and the consequent software development cost. Below are some of the types of inventory management systems that are needed by enterprise-grade businesses:

• Manufacturing Inventory Management Software
• Warehouse Inventory Management Software
• Retail Inventory Management Software
• Order Management Software
• CRM and Inventory Management Software

Cost to Develop Order and Inventory Management System Based on Software Development Company

As the above section covers the inventory management solution development cost based on software-centric factors, it is high time that the development partner-centric ones were included. When businesses and enterprises choose manufacturing software development services from a decade-long proficient software development company, they include factors essential for estimating the cost. To elaborate on two of the main factors, let us do in-depth.

• Inventory Management Software Development Hiring Model

The hiring model for the inventory management software development affects the cost. For instance, you choose freelancers based on the exact requirements. However, the reliability, cost variation, and prolonged timeline are why they are not a viable option. Similarly, you can choose to build an in-house team for the same. Still, the overall cost, infrastructure management, and the employees’ salaries are among the factors that affect the final inventory management software development cost. Since all the options are affecting the cost, the last one left is to hire a software development company. 

• Experience of Order Management Systems Developers

The last factor in the guide is the experience that the software developers hold, which also affects the inventory management software development cost. For instance, a newbie with approximately 1-2 years of experience can take longer than a developer with approximately 5+ years of experience. Not only does that come into question, but also the valuable insights they hold for the process. With expertise in building inventory management systems comes valuable insights into the industry. This eventually affects the cost. 

Estimated Order and Inventory Management Software Development Cost

We have discussed the factors influencing inventory management software development costs so far. However, more is needed for the general masses to find an estimated figure. It can be tricky to fixate on a figure as requirements bring variation. Therefore, it becomes a necessity, at least, to bring forth a range that can offer the decision-makers an idea about the software development cost.

For decision-making purposes, the inventory management software development cost lies within the range of $40,000 to $150,000, based on factors like the software intricacies, the hiring model, and the size of the inventory management software.

How can SparxIT be Your Trusted Management Software Development Company?

As we conclude the inventory management software development cost bifurcated guide, we also conclude that the choice of your software development company impacts the quality of the software. They assist you throughout the software development process with valuable insights, development expertise, the dexterity they hold in the supply chain industry, and many other factors. 

SparxIT, a leading digital transformation agency, has a decade of proficiency in inventory management software development and 200+ experts who bring updated knowledge and years of experience. We focus on clients’ satisfaction, software quality, and timely product delivery.