Technologies that optimize your transportation business metrics

Dealing with the Logistics Transportation Optimization

Efficiency, optimization, speed, and timing have always been crucial in any business, especially when it comes to logistics and transportation, no matter whether it concerns distributors, end customers, transportation firms, retailers, or any part of a supply chain. Without doubts, modern-day manufacturing, and retail transformations, technology disruptions, and digitalization of data made modern logistics providers more flexible, fast, and reliable. As a result, we’ve seen evident growth in transportation software and similar solutions in the logistics industry.

Nevertheless, there are still numerous challenges the owners of the supply chain and transportation companies and the people dealing with the logistics industry, in general, have to deal with in terms of digitalization. Just to name a few pitfalls in embracing digitization and re-engineering a company’s supply stream:

A lack of robust preparation and an exact understanding of what is needed to make multiple systems properly work together. It’s crucial to know how to properly integrate standalone services and software into one transportation management system.
A lack of understanding of how to achieve the best technological security possible and a lack of resources required.
The necessity to build a pragmatic and executable vision of the right digital supply chain strategy.
Insufficient integration of transport networks, information technology, and warehousing & distribution facilities.
A lack of a trustworthy and trained workforce. Essentially, today the logistics sphere lacks digital culture and training of employees for efficient and controlled functions.

Basically, there are lots of other risks associated with overhauling the supply pipelines to conform to a digital platform. With this in mind, is there a way out? Let’s try to figure that out.

Transportation and supply chain industries’ digitization challenges

In order to run a successful transportation business, it is essential to combine both hardware and software solutions. Mobility is the core of transportation, so well-equipped vehicles are essential for gathering data and making better managerial decisions. There are a number of transportation software options on the market that can help with things like route planning, dispatching, and tracking. In addition, there are also a number of apps that can be used for transportation purposes. These apps can help with things like booking transportation services, tracking shipments, and managing invoices. By using both hardware and software solutions, transportation businesses can improve their efficiency and effectiveness.

A decent transportation and logistics management system can help companies dealing with the transportation and supply chain industries solve many of the business challenges they face on a regular basis:

For instance, a good management system can optimize operational relationships between services and end consumers.
What’s more, it can solidly soften the impact of the driver shortage by giving a number of alternatives, innovative and more efficient and cost-effective ways of finding the required capacity beyond a shipper’s core carrier base, in particular, broadcast tenders, digital freight matching, spot bidding, and, of course, auctions.
Moreover, it’s also possible to leverage management CRM’s strategic modeling capabilities to spark the impact of these industry changes and test the solutions.

The transportation industry is in the midst of a data revolution. Thanks to advances in transportation software and the proliferation of apps for transportation, companies are now able to track their assets and goods with unprecedented accuracy. This, in turn, is helping to improve customer relationship management and workforce optimization.

According to Deloitte research, nearly half of surveyed transportation and manufacturing executives in the United States and Europe expect data to improve visibility into assets and goods in the next three years. Over the same time horizon, many say data will help improve customer relationship management (44%) and workforce optimization (35%). As data becomes increasingly ubiquitous in the transportation industry, it is clear that it will continue to transform the way companies do business.

However, investing in digital transformation doesn’t come cheap. Businesses need to ensure those investments pay off and the real value is being delivered. That’s why setting the right KPIs is of utmost importance.

Which technologies favor the transportation business in 2022?

When it comes to transportation, there are a few key technologies that can help assure the best ROI for transportation companies.

ERP systems with AI-based functions

The first is up-to-date ERP systems with AI-based functions of data analysis. These systems enable transportation companies to collect data from vehicles and then deeply analyze it. This data can be used to improve transportation routes, optimize vehicle utilization, and more.

Cloud solutions

Second, transportation companies rely on cloud solutions. Cloud solutions make IT assets more resilient and flexible, which is essential for transportation companies.

Microservice architecture

Many transportations and logistics companies leverage the microservice architecture. Microservices are standalone services that can be integrated into one well-managed unit. This architecture makes it easy to add new services and scale existing services. As a result, transportation companies can easily adapt to changing needs and assure the best ROI possible.

Security Solutions

A transportation company’s IT network combines many standalone devices and processes data that is shared among them. So, all gateways, routes, and middlewares have to be highly protected and the management should implement both engineering and organizational measures for keeping the IT infrastructure uncompromised.

Some of the most suitable technologies for transportation software security are firewalls, intrusion detection/prevention systems, virtual private networks, and encryption. Firewalls can be used to control traffic between networks and to protect internal network resources from unauthorized access.

Intrusion detection/prevention systems can detect and prevent attacks on networked transportation software systems. Virtual private networks can be used to secure communications between transportation software systems. Encryption can be used to protect transportation software system data from being read by unauthorized individuals. All of these technologies are essential for assuring the best ROI for transportation companies.

Key performance indicators (KPIs) and prerequisites

When you examine transportation metrics KPIs, they should cover the following three performance indicators:

Percentage of faulty products delivered.
Percentage of issues caused during each step in the process.
Percentage of correctly delivered orders.

Once evaluated, such reports can provide greater insight into the day-to-day and long-term operations of the business. But that is not all when it comes to logistics and supply management systems evaluation. Advanced analytics and predictive analytics capabilities used in route planning, demand forecasting, and other industry-related affairs are the other important risk management issues to keep in mind. Such features as GPS tracking, real-time surveillance, and real-time temperature feed can be integrated with your existing customer service software, enhancing the product’s quality in your customer’s eyes.

One critical aspect to remember for business owners and top managers is – Employee motivation is directly related to a company’s competitiveness.

Needless to add, since every transportation and logistics technology solution product is unique, even when belonging to one subcategory of the logistics industry, you can hardly find an all-in-one solution fitting to all logistics businesses. The best way is to have your supply chain management software custom-made from scratch. Wondering why?

Consider the following benefits of a custom-made transportation management service:

All features are implemented according to your ultimate needs
Flexible and personalized services
Automation of warehouse management, shipping, distribution, and administrative support deployed simultaneously.
Secure and snap online sharing, digitized internal and customer documentation with automatic backups and document archiving, automating processes and forms.

To put it simpler, with a good supply chain management software product, your business has all chances to:

Improve the quality of your process and productivity, diminishing mistakes
Optimize costs, eliminating major daily tactical execution activities
Make more informed and strategic decisions, therefore raising the company’s benefits
Meet your customer expectations, improving the customer experience as a whole
Have a real-time view of our business, being able to predict possible issues as soon as possible.

Therefore, custom-made management solutions deliver a more strategic approach to your ultimate project’s transportation requirements, letting you boost all business operations and take advantage of the opportunities made available in the new digital age.

One of the examples of transportation and logistics digital solutions Unicrew has developed from scratch is MiniMoves – a cloud-based service for managing household moves including transportation, loading, unloading, packing, and unpacking. We can develop a similar product for your business as well.

Key Takeaways

When there is a strong demand for collaboration improvement, connectivity, and real-time visibility with service providers, opt for a strong logistics operations management solution vendor, which can improve the level of your customer satisfaction, bringing more value to the brand in general. By implementing a full-featured transportation and logistics management system, shippers can improve compliance, cut down on expenses, and find alternative capacity when needed. However, before investing in a powerful transportation management system, ensuring that your company is performing at an optimal level regardless of the challenges that come is of vital importance. So, make sure you take into consideration the main key performance indicators that were described above.

One more important thing to mention: reinventing and digitizing all of your most essential business processes in a powerful management solution made easy with Unicrew because we have the needed resources and the know-how. It’s high time you optimized your transportation business, leaving your competitors in the rearview mirror! Unicrew will help you to achieve this.