In the ever-changing landscape for scrap metal recyclers, business agility is a key component of success. With fluctuating market conditions, emerging technologies and changing regulations, agility means your business can quickly and easily adapt and adjust to be competitive in the new environment.
Below is a look at strategies your scrap yard can use to gauge and improve your agility.
While the concept of agility as a business model is not new, the global pandemic five years ago highlighted the need for organizational agility. It accelerated business planning around preparedness for the future. Recycling companies, like other businesses, had to quickly adapt to disruptions from the pandemic and resulting changes in the marketplace.
Organizations like the Business Agility Institute (BAI) have been around for several years to share resources and ideas to help businesses use agility to be as competitive as possible. Industry experts define business agility as the ability to adapt to market, social or other changes using technology, adopting systems that create agile organizations. This means that the technological changes put in place are not static. Rather, they empower the organization to continue to react quickly to unpredictable changes.
Implementing business agility usually involves the use of industry-specific software.
This is because digital systems are receptive to change, and digital solutions can provide a business with the data necessary to make good decisions. Using data to drive decisions and not relying on “gut instincts” has been proven to lead to more successful decision making in the long term. The digital systems put in place help businesses implement those decisions.
One component of technology enhancing agility is what industry experts call “the internet of things,” (IOT).
This term refers to items which previously may not have employed technology, but which now utilize technology to enable data collection and communication. Examples would be cameras which can digitally send pictures and containers with embedded GPS devices utilized so their exact location can always be known. The internet of things allows an organization to expand and improve their service and business processes with enhanced data and communication.
How agile is your recycling business
For scrap metal recyclers, here are some of the questions that can measure your agility and determine whether technology can help you achieve a competitive advantage.
1-Do you rely solely on paper for recordkeeping, invoices, receipts and other documents?
2-Do you know where all your trucks and containers are located in real time, and can you optimize their routes and placement with technology?
3-Is your compliance with state and local regulations expedited and insured with digital records, signatures, thumbprints and photographs you can digitally upload?
4-Is your current system scalable, meaning, can you add features or capacity quickly when the need arises?
5-Will natural disasters or crime threaten your operations if your on-premises hardware is damaged?
6-Can your back-office employees and traders easily work remotely?
7-Do your vendors and consumers still have to physically sign documents or can they do so electronically?
Making your recycling business agile: ScrapWare Corporation supplies industry-specific software to the scrap metal recycling industry and has addressed these issues for customers with its cloud-based product designed for the unique needs of scrap metal recyclers.
- The ScrapWare software solution allows you to digitize every aspect of your business. This allows users to see with clarity important data and trends in their business, resulting in efficiencies and cost savings.
- ScrapWare users have access to ScrapScribe, a proprietary system integrated with DocuSign, allowing vendors and consumers to sign documents remotely.
- ScrapWare also takes advantage of the “Internet of Things” by integrating scales, cameras, license scanners, signature and thumbprint capture pads, truck and container GPS
- The ScrapWare cloud product is hosted by Oracle, a global leader in business-to business cloud computing with many servers located strategically around the United States and the world.
Using ScrapWare, technology can be put to work to make your recycling business agile.
ScrapWare software can improve productivity and asset utilization, improve consumer and vendor service, increase profitability, streamline operations, help with anti-theft compliance and accommodate a more mobile workforce. This ability, along with the scalable and customizable nature of the product, creates agility that will allow users to respond to fast, unexpected changes and challenges in the marketplace.
About ScrapWare Corporation: Since 1989, Rockville, Maryland-based ScrapWare Corporation has been the software of choice for the recycling industry. Its ease of installation and simplicity saves users time and money while helping them achieve compliance and maintain accurate business insights. With state-of-the-art functionality tailored to each organization’s unique requirements, ScrapWare is an advanced dynamic software solution that alleviates the most pressing recycling industry worries. For more information, please call (301) 517-8500 or visit https://www.scrapware.com/.