If there’s one consistency within the logistics industry, it’s that market volatility is right around the corner. Shipping managers with cross-border freight along the Mexican borderlands know that the Laredo truck market is gonna get tight around holidays, produce season, or a random Thursday for some reason; reefer carriers will flock to U.S. agricultural regions for loads of apples, berries, grapes, and Florida oranges; and warmer weather means construction season started and there’s suddenly a shortage of flatbeds. One way that shippers navigate the uncertainty in the U.S. truck market is by partnering with a transportation service provider specializing in managed services. This modern approach to logistics combines the latest technologies with proven transportation services to provide shippers with a variety of tools and advanced data metrics to streamline supply chains and lower transportation costs. This article offers shipping managers a look into the advantages of data-driven decision-making to help strengthen their supply chains.
Data analytics is transforming the way that shippers manage their daily operations and supply chains as a whole. Most companies incorporate things like KPIs, indexes, and other data streams to provide company-wide benchmarks and to track overall success and profitability. However, a recent FreightWaves report that surveyed industrial leaders showed that nearly 20% of companies did not incorporate any tools to help optimize their supply chains. This indicates that while the logistics industry has gravitated toward and somewhat embraced technological solutions, most shippers still rely on traditional in-house methods of organization. Those methods rely on manual data entry, antiquated TMSs, and bloated email servers that are siloed on individual computers. In other words, the data is there, but it’s rather difficult to collect that information to learn what areas within the shipper’s operations actually require optimization. However, the wave of technological integration into supply chains has shown that data management has transformed the logistics industry in multiple ways. Shippers are no longer making reactionary decisions based on market forces. Instead, they are using data analytics to improve operational efficiency, enhance their decision-making and planning for the future, and save on their overall transportation costs.
A few weeks ago, we wrote about some of the ways that transportation service providers that specialize in managed services are helping shippers streamline their operations, improve customer satisfaction, and improve on-time delivery performance. Zengistics has created a collaborative digital platform that allows shippers to control virtually every aspect of their supply chain network. Their consultative approach to managing logistics is built through communication and planning. Their veteran team of logistics experts and data analysts begins by conducting a research project on their customer’s data reports. This includes master production schedules, inbound and outbound transportation data, budget information, supply chain routes, and other data sources to create a comprehensive data profile of the unique operational requirements of their customers. Zengistics then identifies the critical areas within its customer’s supply chain that could be streamlined for efficiency. This includes things like route optimization and load consolidation to help reduce transportation costs and greenhouse gas emissions, as well as improving visibility with up-to-the-minute tracking and tracing on every load in their supply chain. Some of the specific examples of how Zengistics helps its customers through managed services include:
With their proprietary technology, Zengistics offers shippers on-demand data analytics. Their technology can collect large quantities of raw data that would otherwise remain siloed or difficult to analyze, such as tracking and tracing, load notifications, carrier scorecards, fill rates, and on-time delivery reports. Their collaborative logistics platform allows shipping managers to visualize this data and integrate customizable reports that will enable them to make calculated and data-driven decisions on their supply chain.
Zengistics also provides customers with advanced market intelligence reports on the U.S. truck market. Analyzing historical trends that consider market volatility, tender rejection rates, seasonal oscillations in truck capacity, truck rates, and fuel surcharge costs, among other things, helps shipping managers gain a more holistic view of market conditions. This offers a huge incentive for capacity procurement and helps ensure your numbers align with carrier expectations regarding RFP and mini-bid pricing events.
For decades, shipper and carrier relationships have been developed through phone calls, emails, quality service, and reliability. These metrics go a long way for developing quality trucks, but the data collected, if any, is usually rendered on an individual load basis.
Zengistics uses customer data to develop advanced carrier KPIs that run reports on each carrier partner within your supply chain. Using technology, Zengistics can offer customers things like carrier scorecards that track performance and communication, ensuring that the best trucks are assigned to your loads.
Logistics companies like Zengistics can also incorporate real-time tracking and tracing data of every active load in your transportation network. Their digital platform gives shipping managers automated load notifications for every event within your shipment’s journey and real-time tracking with GPS for all live loads in transport.
With Zengistics, shipping managers can also use the collaborative logistics platform to organize all load details in your transportation network. Instead of searching within emails to track down a document, load instructors, and the like, shipping managers can use the platform to get access to an integrated search index that functions as a great organization tool to quickly find live loads or previous loads by simply searching PO numbers, BOL or invoice. With everything centralized and automated, shippers eliminate the time and energy spent on manual data entry.
Data-driven managed transportation provides shippers with their own team of logistics and transportation professionals that find ways to help your company save money! Zengistics creates a blueprint designed to afford both companies mutual success.
Zengistics has built a solid reputation as the preferred carrier of the alcohol and craft beer vertical, as evidenced by the many examples of how its technology has helped customers save hundreds of thousands of dollars per year on their transportation costs.
Route optimization helps shippers eliminate empty miles, detention costs, and late pickups and deliveries that can add up quickly in yearly transportation budgets. Not only do shippers benefit from reduced transport time and fuel costs, but they can improve delivery KPIs and improve customer satisfaction.
Managed services by design enable shippers to concentrate on expanding their market presence and not worry about the daily grind of the freight world. Zengistics is transforming logistics management by focusing on what they do best: combining decades of experience with cutting-edge technology that delivers results. Through collaboration and trust, Zengistics helps shippers streamline their supply chains. Their advanced technology provides customers with customizable reports that offer unprecedented transparency over their daily operations so that shipping managers can make informed decisions on every shipment. Don’t wait for your next service failure to consider a new provider. Be proactive and contact Zengistics today!
Operating on the world’s first collaborative logistics platform, Zengistics is a technology company that executes freight.
