Transportation has been often seen as the ‘Unresolved Territory’ of the digital age.
Technologies such as 3D printing have allowed us to get a taste of what a world without the need for transportation would feel like, but for the moment we have to deal with the very real and physical process of transporting goods.
The logistic process is still not optimized as much as it could be with the help of ‘digital’.
There are three main reasons why technology holds the key to make far-reaching changes in the logistics industry.
1. Make full use of data analytics & data science
One of the main issues in the logistics and supply chain industry is the use of data. The data is all there, but often not centralized, not clear, or not exploitable, so, how to make good use of it and fully profit from the results? If data is the new oil, what data are you missing out on? The answer would be Better access to data.
Construct
Automate data; improve data flows
Transportation is a very fragmented industry and sometimes it is hard to manage all the data collected. That is the very reason that Easy4Pro has created the Business Intelligence feature which is available to all its users. Having centralization of data will help in finding and customizing the most important KPIs and measuring them. Furthermore, having centralized data also enables the possibility of data science which leads to a wide variety of possibilities like predictive analytics (Prediction of Spot-buy price) and optimization of networks.
No matter in which area, up-to-date information is essential as a basis for fast and secure business decisions.
Challenges can only be reliably overcome with the right visualization:
Identify and highlight problem areas, e.g. high spending on urgent shipments from some plants may indicate supply chain malfunctions.
Analyze the transport volume and make optimal use of it.
2. Transparency and responsibility are combined
As a first step, we must see technology as a tool for increasing transparency. Companies always struggle between choosing centralization with every decision making controlled by the executives and decentralization with faster decision making but sometimes resulting in a lack of control and transparency. The key to success is to find the balance between decentralization and centralization by always keeping the higher management informed. Segregation of duties is a control that prevents a single person from performing two or more tasks in a business process. Organizations need segregation of duties controls to divide tasks in a business process among multiple people to minimize the risk of fraud, waste, and error. This will ensure that everyone follows a formal and consistent protocol by also speeding up the process of transport procurement.
3. Increase the economic return of the whole supply chain
The third critical component is to add economic benefit to the company and make it financially sustainable for both the company and its business partners. Companies before implementing a platform for transport procurement always want to measure ROI. With technology getting more and more powerful every day, any single transaction is now possible to digitize. Bidding, handling various distributor arrangements, paperwork such as e-invoicing. Everything, including payments to trucking partners, can be done electronically.
This will result in cost savings and financial integrity in the long run. Not only will it lower the costs of each transportation but will also save a lot of time to the company for the whole process which usually takes days and even weeks to the procurement and logistics department.
Innovative models, digital transformation, and a proper delivery approach to execution are all needed in the logistics industry. The logistics industry has a lot of potential for innovation, and technology can help at both size and speed, resulting in positive economic returns.