Settle, the developer of an operations platform that helps consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands scale, launched its expanded procurement and inventory management suite this month following the acquisition of inventory management firm Turbine.
This acquisition brings advanced inventory operations and forecasting capabilities to Settle’s money flow management platform. It goals to streamline payments, purchasing, and financing operations for omnichannel brands, enabling them to scale faster and more profitably.
The brand new platform addresses significant pain points for CPG founders and operators, who often spend countless hours navigating disconnected systems and manually consolidating data from spreadsheets, inventory, and bill pay platforms.
In response to Settle, these manual processes reduce accuracy and visibility on the SKU level. Brand operators report needing to update a mean of six separate systems for a single SKU, resulting in costly errors, stockouts, and poor margin management.
Alek Koenig, Settle’s CEO and founder, said this launch and acquisition position Settle to rework how small businesses leverage their inventory and finance operations to unlock faster, more profitable growth.
“As the primary and only integrated platform built specifically for CPG brands, Settle is devoted to helping omnichannel brands scale from idea to shelf, including access to the identical transparent financing we’re known for — on one unified platform,” he told the E-Commerce Times.
AI-Powered Forecasting Boosts Inventory Efficiency
Koenig noted that the brand new Settle platform enables CPG brands to attain higher margins with a leaner team and ultimately drive their bottom-line savings. The automated three-way match feature helps brands discover costly discrepancies. It includes SKU management and reconciliation across purchase orders, invoices, and bills.
Brands can now order and receive the inventory they need by auto-syncing to sales channels like Shopify and the warehouse management systems utilized by 1000’s of third-party logistics corporations nationwide. AI-powered inventory forecasting increases accuracy and reduces manual guesswork.
Using machine learning models (MLMs), brands can forecast demand for existing product sets, receive really helpful timelines for ordering finished goods and raw materials, and predict lead times based on historical data. These capabilities ensure an optimal balance between avoiding stockouts and maintaining healthy money flow by minimizing excess inventory and reducing the danger of lost sales.
“The brand new Settle functionality creates a novel trusted source spanning all supply chain-related functions. This integration allows CPG brands to remain focused on business and never on piecing together information,” in keeping with Chris Jacob, CFO of HigherDose, a wellness company in Recent York City.
“For all retailers, money and inventory are synonymous. Only Settle’s functionality consolidates insight into the more elusive facets, resembling three-way matching and changes in landed costs. Settle serves our business holistically, and we have now left single-solution providers behind for good,” he said.
Simplifying Omnichannel Complexities for CPGs
In response to Koenig, financial operations platforms play a critical role by ensuring that a brand’s processes — from procurement and inventory management to payments and inventory financing — are connected.
For omnichannel businesses, having real-time visibility into inventory and accuracy all the way down to the SKU level ensures margins are maximized, prices are set at optimal levels, and goods are readily available to make the deal.
“While direct-to-consumer [DTC] only brands find lots of value, it becomes so much tougher when you’re omnichannel, so the pain point is that much greater,” he said.
Settle’s recent platform enables CPG brands to proactively manage their inventory, money flow, and vendor relationships. These features help ensure a seamless shopping experience for purchasers across all channels.
“Settle harmonizes all inventory and financial operations in a single platform to simplify the extra complexities of omnichannel brands,” he added.
Automating back-office tasks eliminates remedial but mandatory business chores. Procurement, inventory management, and payment features automate tasks like calculating landed costs, leaving more time for businesses to concentrate on expanding.
Unique Advantages for CPGs
Koenig described Settle because the only platform available in the market that’s built specifically for CPG brands. It helps flip the normal reactive supply chain management model to proactive by breaking actions into to-dos across all workflows, from SKU management to inventory reordering.
CPG brands face challenges like supply chain disruptions. Take, for instance, the recent East Coast dockworkers’ strike at shipping ports, which is temporarily suspended. Other challenges include the impact of inflation, pricing pressure, and labor shortages, all of which might seriously strain their operational efficiency.
“Managing money flow and inventory effectively has grow to be more complex for CPG as brands juggle multiple sales channels and achievement locations, in addition to external challenges,” noted Koenig.
Brands often complain about disruptions like stockouts, overstocking, and an absence of margin visibility. These hurdles make it harder for them to scale effectively and convey accurate financial metrics in the event that they are talking to investors.
Koenig added that Settle addresses these challenges for CPG brands. Its unified platform eliminates self-built spreadsheets, copying and pasting data from multiple systems, and never trusting the resulting accuracy and visibility on costs and margins.
