For many wholesalers and distributors, the ERP sits at the heart of operations. It manages financials, purchasing, inventory control, and core business processes. It’s a critical system. But it wasn’t built to handle every aspect of modern fulfillment.
According to Gartner, many B2B organizations still view order management as a downstream execution system. Focused only on routing orders to fulfillment. But that narrow view limits growth.
In today’s fast-moving, multi-channel world, relying on an ERP alone can lead to inefficiencies, manual work, lost revenue, and broken customer promises. An ERP provides the foundation. An Order Management System (OMS) adds the missing layer of agility and visibility.
ERP + OMS = A Stronger Fulfillment Backbone
The goal is not to replace your ERP. It’s to extend the value of it. The ERP is your operational core. The OMS is the orchestration layer that connects, coordinates, and optimizes fulfillment. Gartner describes this as highly functional middleware between sales complexity and your ERP. It provides an enterprise-wide view of inventory and optimized routing. Ensuring consistent, on-time delivery promises across all channels.
Here are 7 ways an OMS can extend the value of your ERP and transform the way you manage B2B order fulfillment:
1. Real-Time Inventory Visibility
Many ERPs only update inventory in batches, not in real time. In a B2B network with multiple warehouses, 3PLs, and third-party suppliers. Stock levels change constantly, but Inventory availability lags behind.
Why it matters – When stock data lags, decisions are based on the past availability, leading to overselling, missed sales, unhappy customers, and higher operational costs.
How an OMS adds value: It aggregates inventory from all sources. Updates happen in near real time. This ensures sales teams, customers, and partners always see the most accurate information.
2. Optimal Sourcing Across Multiple Fulfillment Locations
ERPs aren’t built natively for complex order routing. Add multiple DCs, 3PLs, or drop-ship vendors, each with their own WMS and processes, and the complexity grows exponentially.
How an OMS adds value: An OMS applies business rules to select the optimal location. Factoring in speed, profitability, cost to serve, and stock availability. It acts as the master of the order, regardless of sales channel or fulfillment location. Ensuring consistent, accurate execution. It works across warehouses, distribution centres, and drop-ship suppliers. Hiding the complexity of multiple remote systems behind a single workflow.
This means the next DC or 3PL you add can be integrated as a fulfillment location in days, not weeks.
3. Managing Complex B2B Order Flows
A B2B order can often be broken into multiple fulfillments. Shipped from different locations and delivered to multiple destinations. But it doesn’t always go to plan. Orders can become difficult to track when problems occur mid-process. Inventory is incorrect. Deliveries are rescheduled, or different stakeholders are managing parts of the same order. This slows everything down. Driving up cost and time, and leaving teams with manual workarounds and black holes in visibility. Impacting both your customers and your operations.
How an OMS adds value: By becoming the single place that looks after every order from the moment it’s created through to pick up or delivery. It keeps all the different systems working together. Even when an order is split into parts. Sent to different places. Or delivered on different dates. It also works with older systems that can be slow, giving you the real-time view of stock you need to keep things moving. This means less chasing. Less manual work. And a smoother experience for both your team and your customers.
4. Streamlining Multiple Order Methods
Wholesalers and distributors have multiple sales channels. EDI, online portals, marketplaces, field sales reps, and direct-to-consumer ecommerce. Traditional ERPs were never designed to manage all these order channels, or the speed at which orders and inventory change. When they are all selling at once, the ERP is constantly playing catch-up. This creates overselling, underselling, delays, and more manual work.
How an OMS adds value: It brings all orders from every channel into one platform. Giving operational teams a single place to view, track, and manage them. It can also control which products and inventory are available by channel. While supporting the unique workflows each order type requires. This reduces complexity, improves visibility, and makes fulfillment smoother for both your teams and your customers.
5. Scaling for Peak Demand
Sudden surges in demand, seasonal spikes, and product launches can overwhelm legacy back-end systems. This can cause issues with fulfillment.
How an OMS adds value: A modern OMS is cloud-native and scales instantly to handle high volumes of both orders and fast-moving inventory. It adds a layer of protection over legacy systems. Ensuring you can manage peak demand with confidence.
6. Improving OTIF (On-Time, In-Full) Performance
B2B customers expect orders to be reliable. Late shipments or incorrect quantities not only cause frustration but can also trigger penalties and damage long-term relationships.
How an OMS adds value: It gives you real-time visibility across every order and automates exception handling. So issues can be resolved before they impact the customer. In other words, you can spot problems early. Keep orders moving and consistently hit OTIF targets.
Gartner highlights that achieving OTIF rates above 90% is an important milestone before sharing delivery promises upstream with customers.
7. Continuous Improvement with Lower Risk
B2B organizations need to adapt quickly to market shifts. That could mean changing delivery ETAs promised to the customer. Adjusting order routing logic. Or adding and removing warehouses and branches as the business evolves. The challenge is making these adjustments fast, while being able to test and measure the impact.
How an OMS adds value: An OMS is a classic example of composable/modular architecture. It allows you to embrace continuous improvement. Making small, simple to test, self-contained changes away from your ERP. This will reduce risk and make it much easier to test the impact of change in an easy, reproducible way.
8. Managing WISMO (Where Is My Order?) Calls
When orders are coming in from different channels and flowing through multiple systems, traditional ERPs don’t make them easy to track. When customers ask, “Where is my order?”, service teams are left piecing together updates from multiple siloed systems. It’s time-consuming for your team and frustrating for customers.
How an OMS adds value: An OMS gives a single, real-time view of every order across all channels and fulfillment locations. Customers get clearer updates, and your team spends less time chasing information. WISMO becomes far easier to manage. Improving both customer experience and operational efficiency.
Optimized B2B Fulfillment at Scale
Fluent Order Management helps overcome ERP limitations and unlocks the full potential of your fulfillment operations. The platform delivers real-time inventory visibility and end-to-end supply chain coordination. It brings together multi channel orders from online, offline, and field sales into one seamless workflow. Applying business rules to route each order to the best fulfillment location.
If you’d like to learn more about how Fluent Order Management can help your business increase order profitability, improve OTIF performance, reduce manual processes, and scale with confidence, contact us today.
Source: Gartner, Expand Your View of Order Management in B2B to Meet New Customer Demands, August 2025. Available at: https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/6800734
