Real-time transportation visibility with accurate estimated times of arrival (ETAs) plays a crucial role in optimizing supply chain operations and reducing costs, but these platforms also contribute to increasing revenues, not just for logistics service providers, but for shippers as well.
This claim is supported by the 2023 Descartes Transportation Management (TM) survey published earlier this year where we saw a particular emphasis from companies wanting to improve shipment visibility. Notably, top-performing companies are investing in technology primarily to foster business growth and elevate customer service. With the continuing uncertain economic conditions, companies are looking for ways to better serve their current customers, drive more revenues from existing customers and smartly grow their business. Here are some ways that real-time transportation visibility can help grow revenues for shippers.
Enhanced Customer Experience
Accurate ETA predictions enable shippers to provide customers with more precise delivery timeframes. When customers have reliable information about when their orders will arrive, they can plan accordingly, reducing uncertainty and frustration. This improved customer experience can lead to higher customer retention rates and increased loyalty. By enhancing your customers’ experience, you may also find that your customers may start to shift more of their volumes to you vs. your competitors. This competitive advantage can lead to increased market share, repeat business, and referrals, all of which contribute to higher revenues.
Reduced Costs
Real-time visibility allows shippers to identify potential inefficiencies or delays in the supply chain, enabling them to take corrective actions promptly. In addition to real-time issue management, minimizing delays, rerouting shipments around traffic congestion etc., shippers with real-time visibility platforms have the data to track and highlight underperforming parts of their network and underperforming supply chain partners. Addressing these problems areas can reduce transportation and operational costs. These savings can be passed on to customers to spur increased sales or to improve profit margins.
Dynamic Resource Allocation
With real-time visibility, shippers and their customers can make better decisions regarding resource allocation. For example, they can allocate resources more effectively by adjusting staffing levels, warehouse operations, and distribution centre activities based on real-time demand and shipment status. This agility leads to reduced idle time, optimized resource utilization, which can increase throughput in the supply chain to handle more volume (without additional investments) and ultimately increase revenue potential.
Faster Order-to-Delivery Cycle
The ability to track shipments in real time eThe ability to track shipments in real-time enables shippers to identify potential bottlenecks and delays in the supply chain. By addressing these issues promptly, shippers can streamline the order-to-delivery cycle, reducing lead times and expediting order fulfilment. This faster turnaround time can lead to increased order volumes, faster time to payment, higher revenues, and improved customer satisfaction.
Management by Exception
The automated functions within real-time visibility solutions allow operations personnel to focus attention to only the problem shipments and not waste valuable time finding out the status of shipments where no action is required. This frees up time for the employees to focus on more strategic customer endeavors; including, how to collaborate to drive benefits for both parties, how to better share information to forecast requirements, or any of a number of initiatives that make you more valuable to your customers.
When real-time visibility solutions are integrated to other systems within your business, you’re able to optimize business processes outside of just logistics. This enables global visibility and allows departments to run more smoothly. Unlocking this real-time data is a key step towards the digital transformation that many shippers are progressing through now. In conclusion, real-time transportation visibility solutions empower shippers to enhance operational efficiency, provide an excellent customer experience, reduce costs, allocate resources effectively, expedite order-to-delivery cycles, gain data-driven insights, and secure a competitive advantage to drive increased revenues.
INDUSTRY WHITEPAPER
2023 Global Transportation Management Benchmark Report
Descartes conducts annual benchmark research among global transportation professionals. The 2023 study reveals that higher (fuel) costs and a shortage of drivers pose challenges, while investments in visibility present opportunities.
