Of all the five senses we humans have, the sense of smell is most closely linked with our memory. No wonder, fragrances have the power to evoke nostalgia, to take us back to our past.
You may not remember how exactly some of the specific incidents from your childhood unfolded, but perhaps you will never forget the fragrances associated with those incidents.
For ex: the specific details of countless incidents of playing in the rains as a child can be forgotten, but not the petrichor.
People come and go from our lives, but the scent of someone important who has gone stays with us forever.
By now, you must have got an idea that this is about fragrances- scents, perfumes, deodorants, body sprays etc.
Once considered an exclusive commodity of the rich, these fragrances have become an important part of people’s everyday life today.
And what has brought about this change? People have become increasingly aware regarding their personal hygiene and grooming habits.
There has also been a significant rise in spending onpersonal care products, especially with the rise in disposable income.
Moreover, the marketers have done a smart job in positioning these personal care products as an essential part of ones’ social status and individuality.
The demand for these products, thus, has constantly been on the higher side in recent years, which has resulted in industry growth. However, this growth hasn’t come easy to the manufacturers.
Challenges galore
What this growth has meant is that many new players have entered the fragrances market. One may argue that the competition is good for business, but not in all the cases.
Talking about the fragrances industry, the growth has encouraged a few to come up with counterfeit products made with the use of chemical ingredients.
These products, which are obviously cheaper than the original products, also come with possible side-effects, which raises credibility issues and poses a stiff challenge to the industry.
Easy access to literature on skin care and health care means the consumers have turned health conscious, and expect nothing but top quality and safe products from the fragrance manufacturers.
At the same time, sustainability has become a big concern for cosmetics and personal care industry, mainly because the consumers have also increasingly become environmentally conscious.
The consumers today are more concerned about issues such as the depletion of the natural resources, and environmental degradation, and hence want to know whether the cosmetics products (such as fragrances) that they use are not manufactured in such a way that they either affect the environment, or their skin.
This has put extra pressure on fragrance manufacturers to prepare ‘greener’, natural, traceable and unadulterated products.
Additionally, the manufacturers also need to reduce their packaging waste and move to sustainable packaging, and measure carbon emissions to reduce greenhouse gases. All these efforts are important in order to retain customers.
Then there are the supply chain issues, which the fragrance manufacturers need to deal with. Supply chains have become longer and complex, and on most occasions it becomes difficult to trace ingredient origins.
This calls for greater transparency and traceability in the supply chain. There’s also a need for green formulations, i.e. to switch to renewable sources for raw materials and use more ‘green’ ingredients, and to maintain consistency in formulation.
Keeping the ever-rising costs under check, operating at tight margins, adhering to the stringent regulatory compliances and maintaining quality standards in manufacturing to retain the competitive edge, are the other challenges in front of fragrance manufacturers.
Enter ERP
The challenges mentioned above are exactly the reasons why fragrance manufacturers need an enterprise resource planning (ERP) software more than ever.
To begin with, the manufacturers are putting ERP at the core of all the environmental manufacturing sustainability strategies.
With the help of ERP solution for fragrances, the fragrance manufacturers are managing the supply chain operations more efficiently, and hence keeping a lid on the costs of energy, emissions and waste in sourcing, manufacturing and logistics.
These ERP-driven strategies eventually result in reduced risks and costs through reduced water usage in production and slashed carbon emissions.
As an ERP software for perfumes integrates the different functions of a business, manufacturers can collect real-time data from different environmental sources that are affected by production-related activities.
Continuing on how an ERP for perfumes helps the fragrance manufacturers efficiently manage the supply chain, it gives them better control over it so as to improve planning, optimize inventory levels, and allow the manufacturers to respond more quickly to their suppliers.
Additionally, a fragrance ERP also allows the fragrance manufacturers to monitor and track the company’s carbon footprints and other environmental compliance metrics.
Moving forward, an ERP for perfume’s robust formulation module ensures consistency in the formulation, which ensures that the manufacturers offer the consumers their favorite fragrance every single time. In addition, it seamlessly integrates with the different stages of the manufacturing process such as a collection of raw materials, extraction, which further involves several methods like steam distillation, solvent extraction, effleurage, maceration, and expression; blending, aging, etc.
Coming to the regulatory compliance part, a fragrance ERP software provides the fragrance manufacturers with support to all the compliance regulations including GHS, generation of compliant labels/safety data sheets for defined regions, etc.
Manufacturers can generate customized ingredient labels and reports using an ERP for Fragrances, and can stay compliant to all the regulatory mandates in terms of labelling, safety reporting, shipping documentation, lot traceability, and recall requirements.
They can also maintain key transactions in history logs for auditing purposes, including formula modifications during development and production.
Moreover, its advanced quality control feature ensures the end products are of the highest quality.
To sum up: The fragrance manufacturers need a fragrance ERP software more than ever today to deal with all the challenges they are faced with.
Using an ERP, they can generate reports for timely decision making, find support to new product development, manage costs efficiently, manage co-products and by-products, enjoy bi-directional lot traceability, meet all the regulatory compliance requirements, satisfy the customers by providing greener products and assuring no harm to the environment, etc.
One ERP which checks all the boxes for the fragrance manufacturers is BatchMaster ERP for fragrances. For more information, or for a free demo, write to us today.
