A stockout costs you a sale today and a customer's patience tomorrow. Overstock costs you warehouse space and cash tied up in products that aren't moving. Most mid-market manufacturers are managing both risks at once, usually with a forecasting process that wasn't built for the volume they're now running. Why Spreadsheet and Gut-Feel Forecasting Breaks Down at Mid-Market Scale At a smaller scale, a planner who knows the business well can forecast reasonably by feel, backed by

Freight rates swing. Tariffs shift with little warning. A shipment that cost you a predictable amount last quarter can land at a very different number this quarter, and most distributors don't find out until the invoice arrives. That's the real problem with landed cost management software — or the lack of it. Without a system built to track the true cost of goods distribution, from origin to warehouse shelf, you're pricing product on a number that was already out of date the

Most "best ERP" lists are written for one of two buyers: a small business choosing its first system, or an enterprise with a seven-figure budget and a dedicated IT department. Mid-market manufacturing and distribution companies fall in an awkward gap between those two — big enough to have real complexity, not big enough to overbuy. It's worth pausing on what ERP actually means before going further, since the term gets used loosely even by people who hear it daily. ERP stands