The Forrester Wave™: Order Management Systems, Q2 2023

See the Results

6 essential stakeholders you need for your Order Management System RFP

Ask the right questions to engage key stakeholders early

6 stakeholders
Software purchases used to be controlled solely by IT departments. Not anymore.

By Michelle Soriano

Feb 28, 2023

You’ve done your research. You understand the problem domain. Whether driven by overselling, underselling, the need to drive down delivery costs, or improve store fulfillment operations, you know a modern Order Management System (OMS) is the solution. Great! But now the real work begins.  If you’re the primary champion on an order management project you’ll need to build support from others in the business.

The rise in multi-department funding

Not too long ago, most software purchases were driven by IT departments. But now? That’s no longer the case. There are far more departments involved. So how do you get all of these different departments and stakeholders on board? As you build your business use case, make sure you involve these 6 essential stakeholders—and encourage them to answer these questions.

1. Chief Information Officer (CIO)

Your CIO is the main stakeholder—but what really matters to them? How they can deliver value to the business faster while reducing costs. It’s less about the external customer experience, so when gathering support from your CIO keep the focus on faster innovation and a lower Total Cost of Ownership.

2. Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)

Surprised by this one? While few CMOs likely think about the impact of inventory data accuracy on their programs, they would be remiss not to if they do a lot of digital advertising. Focus on the Return on Advertising Spend (ROAS). What happens when your digital ads are leading to an out of stock product? Wasted ad spend. And a terrible customer experience.

3. Head of Ecommerce

Another key stakeholder—your Head of Ecommerce. Make sure they understand the impact of accurate inventory availability data. Not just on canceled orders and out of stocks, but how the impact on accurate delivery or pickup lead times which can make a huge difference to conversion rates

4. Head of Logistics

Hit on their key metric: Fill Rate. It’s the percentage of orders shipped on time and in full—on the first attempt. And the leading indicator for a low fill rate is a high rejection rate, or the average number of times an order has to be rerouted to another location.

A modern order management system can have a huge impact on this. One of its most important jobs is to serve as the inventory availability master so your business gets an accurate, unified, cross system view of all your inventory data. And when inventory accuracy goes up? Your rejection rate goes down.

5. Head of Customer Service

The customer service team handles a lot of inquiries. But how does an order management system impact this team? In a huge way. Especially if you have a high canceled order rate, or don’t send out regular notifications to your customers throughout the order lifecycle.

6. Head of Store Operations

Buy Online Pickup in Store (BOPIS)—sometimes known as Click and Collect—and Ship from Store are here to stay. But it’s important to get it right, both from a customer experience perspective and from a store staff perspective. And if you don’t have accurate inventory and modern tools for your staff, it can impact labor productivity and employee engagement.

Engage early

Get ahead of the process by engaging with these six key stakeholders early. The right order management system will reap benefits across departments for your organization—from an increase in revenue to an improved customer experience. 

But don’t stop at these questions—or these stakeholders. Download the eBook, Order Management System RFPs: 7 essential stakeholders, to dive into more questions, why it really matters, and one more stakeholder you should take into consideration. And when you’re ready to submit your OMS RFP, you can count on Fluent Order Management to handle your every need.

Order Management System FPs: 7 essential stakeholders

Free Download


Get help building a business case for an order management system with questions catered to 7 key stakeholders.

This site is registered on wpml.org as a development site. Switch to a production site key to remove this banner.