Shippers large or small who are looking for ways to maximize their profits, optimize their internal operations, and streamline their supply chains, often look for technological solutions as a means to help alleviate some of the constraints and anxieties their team faces when managing their supply chain. Most shippers outsource at least some portion of their transportation; it is far too expensive for most companies to invest and maintain their own fleet of assets, buy equipment, and pay for all the expenses involved within. And when they partner with freight brokers, most 3PLs promise the moon in terms of service guarantees, or claim to have the most advanced technology available on the planet. In reality, most brokers just offer a rate and a truck, and their relationship is good enough until something goes wrong.
Yet, there are a few tech-enabled transportation service providers out there who offer their customers unique value-added services that are defining modern logistics, and helping shippers with planning, execution, and optimization. This article focuses on managed transportation services, an invaluable resource for shippers that works to streamline their operations, reduce their operational costs, and maximize efficiencies within their workforce. It will provide some advice for shippers looking to get the most out of their managed transportation services, allowing companies to save time and energy in the process.
After partnering with a logistics provider that specializes in managed transportation service, the initial stage within the business relationship is to formulate an action plan that creates a roadmap to help execute scalable growth for both parties. Instead of just servicing truckloads of freight, companies like Zengistics seek to transform and optimize your company’s entire supply chain. Their consultative approach involves researching, analyzing, and processing your load data, targeting key areas within your supply chain and operations that can be streamlined to run more efficiently. This may include route optimization, consolidating shipments, reducing or eliminating time consuming manual tasks, and optimizing your inventory so that your company stays ahead of market conditions.
“Execution” loosely defined, is your company’s overall supply chain performance. Every shipping manager in North America could probably circle at least one or two areas they would like to improve, whether it involves inventory management, loading times, sourcing quality trucks, consolidating their paperwork, or just having their loads delivered on time and in full. With Zengistics, their managed transportation service helps shippers gain more control over their operations. Zengistics integrates the various internal systems your company already utilizes and streamlines these systems into a single, easy-to-use collaborative logistics platform that is tailored specifically to your business. In terms of execution, Zengistics provides shippers with the tools to help streamline processes like payroll accounts, organizing shipping documents, insurance docs, and custom broker information; tracking and tracing, and offering real-time visibility on all shipments that can be searched using a PO or load number. Other key benefits of the managed transportation service includes:
Zengistics also helps companies create transportation KPIs to track performance metrics of your carrier pool. The technology uses advanced data analytics to help shipping managers visualize carrier performance. It combines historic market data and factors in seasonality fluctuations that create capacity volatility, helping shippers overcome some of the challenges involving truck capacity, helping companies sustain carrier density year round. Some of the features included within transportation KPIs include predictive rates modeling, helping shippers get a sense of what their freight costs are at compared with prevailing market trends. This sort of data is terrific for helping shippers secure favorable rates on RFP and mini-bids.
Having access to a managed transportation service provides shippers with a centralized platform that helps optimize virtually every aspect of their supply chain. It starts by providing shippers with full transparency into the daily shipping operation. Having a fully integrated and customizable TMS that seamlessly connects with existing internal databases helps streamline operations and gives shippers unprecedented control over their supply chain. The managed transportation service offers real visibility through every touch point within the lifecycle of a load’s journey, helping your business improve performance metrics and on-time deliveries. Some other benefits include:
This article has highlighted some of the major benefits that shippers gain when utilizing a managed transportation service, namely with planning, execution, and organization. The technology is designed to streamline logistical processes and gain more oversight into the functionality and health of your current operations. But the tech goes beyond that, by freeing up capital spent on redundant tasks, allowing your company to reposition your workforce and financial capital in areas that will help expand beyond your current market share. In other words, managed transportation services help save your company money.
Zengistics has built a formidable reputation for themselves within the niche craft beer vertical. Through their industry experience, managed transportation service, and veteran team of logistics experts, Zengistics has helped dozens of beverage shippers save hundreds of thousands of dollars each year through load consolidation. Through data analytics and through route optimization, their managed transportation service helped Stone Brewery improve their truck fill rate to 98%, and a matching 98% of on-time delivery on nearly 3,000 truckloads a year.
Aside from load consolidation and increased fill rates, a managed transportation service helps shippers with other aspects tied to route optimization that will save on costs. For example, the technology can help eliminate costly accessorial charges for detention, late pickups and deliveries. By improving your overall service and having performance metrics to track carrier success, shippers can reduce financial penalties that can dent into yearly profits.
Partnering with a fully-integrated transportation service provider with a managed transportation service can eliminate some of the common problems found when working with multiple third-party vendors. Shippers who work with multiple brokers may internalize the belief they are mitigating risks by siloing companies into specific lanes of service. However, for every 3PL you onboard, you are doubling the amount of work involved in getting load updates and delivery notifications, emails, phone calls, and text messages. The benefit of a managed transportation service is that every single aspect of a load’s journey is streamlined into a collaborative logistics platform that centralizes data, communication, and load information that is available at your fingertips. This eliminates the need for constant check-calls, manual data entry, and time spent searching for information sent in emails.
A transportation managed service provides shippers with a customizable digital dashboard that provides complete transparency on every cycle within a load’s journey. With real-live tracking and tracing, automated load notifications, and a portal to centralize every load document, Zengistics’s TMS empowers shipping managers to get total control over their supply chain so they are never left in the dark about the status of their loads. Using the power of Turvo, shipping data is also indexed and searchable, allowing shippers to use the transportation managed service like their own personal supply chain database.
Zengistics offers shippers a holistic approach to understanding logistics, creating long lasting strategic partnerships with their customers that is built on trust, accountability, and technological knowhow. Through their transportation managed services, Zengistics is transforming the ways that shippers visualize their operations, helping to streamline logistical processes that build scalable growth, eliminate waste, and reduce the time and energy spent on manual data entry. As this article has shown, there are many benefits companies gain by adopting tech solutions designed to optimize their supply chain. Learn how Zengistics can help your company by connecting with an expert today!
Operating on the world’s first collaborative logistics platform, Zengistics is a technology company that executes freight.