10 Order Processing Problems in FMCG Distribution
The recurring failures on a food and FMCG order desk — the messy channel mix, the item master, the 6am queue, catch weight — and what each one actually needs.
These are the problems that come up in almost every conversation with a food or FMCG distributor's order desk. None of them are exotic. All of them are structural, which is why they survive process improvement projects.
1. The channel mix is not yours to choose
Orders arrive by email, WhatsApp, phone, PDF, spreadsheet, and occasionally a photograph of a page from a notebook. Every plan to consolidate this into one channel has failed, because the customer picks the channel and the customer is not in your planning meeting.
What it needs: accepting the mix as a permanent condition rather than a transitional one.
2. The item master does not speak the customer's language
Your ERP knows a SKU, a pack size and a unit of measure. Your customer knows "the big cola". The gap between those two is a person, and that person is the bottleneck.
What it needs: matching that uses the account's own ordering history, not just string similarity against a product name.
3. Everything arrives in the same three hours
Order volume between 6am and 9am is not a peak, it is the whole day. Staffing for the peak means overstaffing for the other five hours; staffing for the average means the cutoff slips.
What it needs: capacity that is not a function of headcount at 6am.
4. The cutoff is a suggestion
You publish an 11am cutoff. An order arrives at 10:52 and is opened at 11:20. It made the cutoff on paper and missed it in practice, and now someone is deciding whether to squeeze it onto the run.
What it needs: the cutoff evaluated when the order arrives, not when it is read — see Your cutoff time is only as real as your order desk.
5. Minimums are enforced when there is time
Minimum order values exist to stop you paying to deliver an unprofitable drop. They get checked on quiet mornings and skipped on busy ones — which means they are skipped exactly when volume is highest.
What it needs: enforcement at entry, plus a way to offer the customer the shortfall rather than just rejecting them. Minimum order values are a margin problem covers why this one compounds.
6. Catch weight breaks the arithmetic
The customer orders four legs of lamb. You invoice by kilo. The order line and the invoice line describe the same thing in different units, and everything downstream — pricing, picking, the customer's own goods-in — has to reconcile them.
What it needs: the ordered unit and the invoiced unit both carried from the start, not reconciled afterwards. The full version is in Ordered by piece, invoiced by kilo.
7. Repeat orders are not actually repeats
"Same as last week" is the most common order in this industry and one of the most dangerous. It means last week's order, except for the bits the customer assumed you would know to change.
What it needs: the assumption stated on the order so it can be corrected before it ships.
8. Substitutions happen after the order is entered
The line was fine when it was typed. Then the stock was not there. Now someone is choosing a substitute and hoping the customer agrees, usually without asking, usually at speed.
What it needs: a decision that goes back to a person with the original message attached, not a warehouse improvisation.
9. The ERP is not the problem, and cannot be replaced anyway
Everyone's instinct is that a better ERP would fix this. It would not, and you are not going to replace it regardless. The ERP is a system of record and it records what it is told. The problem is upstream, in the getting-told.
What it needs: something that sits in front of the ERP, not a project to rip it out.
10. The knowledge is in three people's heads
The real order processing system is not the ERP. It is Priya, who has been here nine years and knows which accounts mean what. This works extremely well until Priya takes two weeks off, and it is the reason growth feels harder than it should.
What it needs: that knowledge written into the system as account rules and order history, so it is institutional rather than personal.
The common thread
Nine of these ten are the same problem in different clothes: work that depends on a person being present, attentive and experienced at 6:30am. None of them are solved by working harder, and none of them are solved by a new ERP.
These are the problems that come up in almost every conversation with a food or FMCG distributor's order desk. None of them are exotic. All of them are structural, which is why they survive process improvement projects.
1. The channel mix is not yours to choose
Orders arrive by email, WhatsApp, phone, PDF, spreadsheet, and occasionally a photograph of a page from a notebook. Every plan to consolidate this into one channel has failed, because the customer picks the channel and the customer is not in your planning meeting.
What it needs: accepting the mix as a permanent condition rather than a transitional one.
2. The item master does not speak the customer's language
Your ERP knows a SKU, a pack size and a unit of measure. Your customer knows "the big cola". The gap between those two is a person, and that person is the bottleneck.
What it needs: matching that uses the account's own ordering history, not just string similarity against a product name.
3. Everything arrives in the same three hours
Order volume between 6am and 9am is not a peak, it is the whole day. Staffing for the peak means overstaffing for the other five hours; staffing for the average means the cutoff slips.
What it needs: capacity that is not a function of headcount at 6am.
4. The cutoff is a suggestion
You publish an 11am cutoff. An order arrives at 10:52 and is opened at 11:20. It made the cutoff on paper and missed it in practice, and now someone is deciding whether to squeeze it onto the run.
What it needs: the cutoff evaluated when the order arrives, not when it is read — see Your cutoff time is only as real as your order desk.
5. Minimums are enforced when there is time
Minimum order values exist to stop you paying to deliver an unprofitable drop. They get checked on quiet mornings and skipped on busy ones — which means they are skipped exactly when volume is highest.
What it needs: enforcement at entry, plus a way to offer the customer the shortfall rather than just rejecting them. Minimum order values are a margin problem covers why this one compounds.
6. Catch weight breaks the arithmetic
The customer orders four legs of lamb. You invoice by kilo. The order line and the invoice line describe the same thing in different units, and everything downstream — pricing, picking, the customer's own goods-in — has to reconcile them.
What it needs: the ordered unit and the invoiced unit both carried from the start, not reconciled afterwards. The full version is in Ordered by piece, invoiced by kilo.
7. Repeat orders are not actually repeats
"Same as last week" is the most common order in this industry and one of the most dangerous. It means last week's order, except for the bits the customer assumed you would know to change.
What it needs: the assumption stated on the order so it can be corrected before it ships.
8. Substitutions happen after the order is entered
The line was fine when it was typed. Then the stock was not there. Now someone is choosing a substitute and hoping the customer agrees, usually without asking, usually at speed.
What it needs: a decision that goes back to a person with the original message attached, not a warehouse improvisation.
9. The ERP is not the problem, and cannot be replaced anyway
Everyone's instinct is that a better ERP would fix this. It would not, and you are not going to replace it regardless. The ERP is a system of record and it records what it is told. The problem is upstream, in the getting-told.
What it needs: something that sits in front of the ERP, not a project to rip it out.
10. The knowledge is in three people's heads
The real order processing system is not the ERP. It is Priya, who has been here nine years and knows which accounts mean what. This works extremely well until Priya takes two weeks off, and it is the reason growth feels harder than it should.
What it needs: that knowledge written into the system as account rules and order history, so it is institutional rather than personal.
The common thread
Nine of these ten are the same problem in different clothes: work that depends on a person being present, attentive and experienced at 6:30am. None of them are solved by working harder, and none of them are solved by a new ERP.