Plan, procure, execute, & track transportation for every shipment across your supply chain & logistics operations
A SaaS solution to help grow your business by achieving 100% perfect order execution at high volumes
Increase vehicle capacity utilization and customer promise adherence
Grow your business with omnichannel presence and automated pickups
Consolidate shipments for hub to hub movement across land and air
Real-time customer communications and collect accurate PODs
Orchestrate logistics operations with multiple 3rd party carriers
Achieve cost effective, scalable, sustainable, and customer centric deliveries
Orchestrate all your cross-border logistics operations with ease
Improve address accuracy, ensure first-attempt delivery success, reduce costs and boost customer experience
Gain end-to-end shipment visibility, get proactive alerts, and send customers live tracking links
Grow business in a dynamic world and manage operations across First, Middle & Last mile
Delight customers by seamlessly managing store and online orders across own fleet and 3rd party
Reduce freight costs & get end to end visibility across shipments
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Indian freight and logistics market has been steadily growing over the years and is expected to register a 5% CAGR during the 2022-2027 period. And the logistics market is expected to reach a whopping $380 billion by 2025 from $250 BN in 2021.
Primary factors responsible for catalyzing the growth of the freight and logistics industry are the growing retail sales market, booming eCommerce sector, and, most importantly, infrastructural and technological developments and initiatives taken by the government such as GPS-based collection, Fast-Tag, e-way bills, etc.
While the freight and logistics industry is booming, the majority of businesses haven’t yet opted for modern technological solutions and are still stuck with obsolete freight management systems.
And because of a lack of technology integration, they face operational inefficiencies, incorrect predictions, and ineffective manual route planning, which further leads to higher fuel costs, breached SLAs, and poor customer experience.
Therefore, for logistics businesses to survive in the highly competitive logistics market, reliable, highly functional, and affordable freight management software in India is necessary.
In this guide, we talk about how freight management software can help businesses solve different freight and logistics challenges and how businesses can choose the right solution to unlock growth.
Because of the increased internet (784.59 million internet connections in 2021) and smartphone penetration in India, the eCommerce sector is experiencing a boom. This boom, along with the Indian government’s initiatives in developing road infrastructure, is promoting the freight and logistics industry in the country.
However, the growth of the eCommerce industry is exerting massive pressure on logistics companies in India to handle a huge number of shipments, deliver the same to the customers, and facilitate returns in a faster and more affordable fashion, promoting the need for freight management software in India.
Below, we talk about other factors that are boosting the growth of freight management software in Indian market in detail:
The Indian government is taking substantial initiatives towards the development of road infrastructure, which is amazing news for the freight and logistics industry as the majority of freight relies on road transport.
The Government of India has allocated a massive USD 1.4 trillion under the NIP or National Highway project for the financial year 2019-2025. Under this initiative, around 18% of the capital, around 252 billion, will go into the development of roads. And by the end of 2022, around 200,000 km of national highways are expected to be completed.
This infrastructure development will help connect more regions within the country, promoting the growth of freight management software.
The Indian eCommerce market has shown exponential growth and is expected to reach $350 billion by 2030. This growth is led by the rise in the number of internet and smartphone users in the country driven by the ‘Digital India’ program. More and more Indians are opting for online shopping, which is made easy with payment platforms such as Google Pay, Phonepe, Paytm, Amazon Pay, etc.
With the growing eCommerce and changing customer preferences, logistics companies are expected to deliver products faster and offer free shipping and seamless returns, which isn’t possible without a smart freight management software solution.
Along with the rising eCommerce sector, bilateral trade activities in India are also on the rise, majorly driven by better product quality, international trade, and domestic development anti-China sentiments. Today, India has bilateral trade agreements with 50 countries, and this number will only increase.
These rising bilateral trade activities are catalyzing the need for a smart and efficient freight management system in India that helps businesses manage international inbound and outbound shipments efficiently.
The pandemic undoubtedly impacted all sectors, including India’s freight and logistics industry. However, it was an opportunity in disguise. Because of the smart efforts of the government and talented labor, India was able to create a vaccine in time and export the same, along with several medical products such as PPE kits, masks, and oxygen concentrators across the world, reviving the freight industry.
Along with fueling the growth of the freight and logistics industry, the pandemic led to an operational shift from traditional and obsolete methods to digital and contactless ones. The pandemic also uncovered several gaps in the Indian logistics industry, such as a lack of digitization and modern technology, proving how essential they are for efficient operations.
During the pandemic, people felt the need for quick home deliveries of groceries and other essential items. And after two years, quick commerce has become pretty common. In several cities within India, numerous goods are delivered to the customers within an hour or less as opposed to the conventional method, which takes days.
However, as the quick commerce model grows further, businesses need more advanced technological tools, such as freight management software, to meet the rising demands, plan their deliveries better, and reach more customers on or before time.
The government has taken several initiatives to improve the country’s logistics sector, such as the Multi-Modal Logistics Parks policy, which is expected to cut freight costs, and reduce congestion and vehicular pollution while promoting domestic & global trade.
Additionally, the government is investing aggressively towards developing dedicated freight corridors and upgrading the existing transportation infrastructures across the country, which is directly boosting the freight and logistics market.
India is the 3rd largest emitter of greenhouse gas. A thing not to be proud of. And the transport sector accounts for 13.5% of total emissions, out of which 90% comes from road transport. However, the Indian government is taking initiatives to reduce carbon emissions and adopt sustainable freight transportation by investing in technology and infrastructure.
Logistics companies can significantly reduce their carbon footprint if they opt for freight management software that offers route optimization. Because such features help shippers find the shortest route, reducing fuel consumption and, thus, emissions.
While the Indian freight and logistics industry is slowly moving towards digital solutions, the adoption rate is quite poor. Several businesses refrain from using modern technology solutions to save money which actually leads to inefficiencies and high operational costs in the long run.
Additionally, as most logistics companies don’t have smart route optimization tools, they are unable to find the shortest route to their destination. This leads to unnecessary fuel expenditures, which further adds to the logistics costs.
India’s freight and logistics industry relies heavily on road transport. However, the condition of roads in India isn’t good enough. Also, due to multiple checkpoints and traffic congestions, even if the shipment is well scheduled, it fails to reach the destination on time, leading to poor customer satisfaction.
This challenge can be solved with the help of freight management software in India that offers route optimization. Using route optimization, businesses can find the most suitable route that is least congested to ensure timely deliveries.
Because of the lack of technology adoption, the stakeholders, including the customers, cannot communicate effectively or collaborate. It means there’s no transparency which creates trust issues across the supply chain.
However, an end-to-end management solution that offers 360-visibility can help solve this issue. Such platforms offer a centralized system making it easy for all stakeholders to communicate & collaborate and get real-time updates about the shipments offering complete transparency and building trust.
Several processes in the Indian freight and logistics industry rely on manual elements such as sending RFQs to different vendors, handling back-office tasks, preparing invoices, procuring freight, etc. However, reliance on manual elements is often inefficient, especially when thousands of orders need to be processed each day, leading to breached SLAs and poor customer experience.
This can be dealt with by using smart freight management solutions that help automated redundant tasks to improve efficiency and reduce the error margin to zero.
Another major challenge the Indian freight industry faces is a lack of intelligent delivery orchestration, which leads to a disconnect between different processes. Because of this, logistics businesses aren’t able to make informed decisions, scale, and, most importantly, meet customer demands.
This requires a smart, automated system that helps to orchestrate all the processes, streamline them, and create an automated workflow. Businesses can get better visibility and draw useful insights when all the processes are connected.
Reliable freight management software offers an integrated dashboard that connects all the stakeholders, offering them all the necessary insights, real-time monitoring, and tracking information, ensuring effective communication and collaboration. This way, businesses can manage all the stakeholders at once while keeping them in sync.
Freight management software with route and asset optimization is a game changer. With smart route optimization, freight and logistics business owners can find the most optimized or shortest route from source to destination, ensuring optimum fuel usage and delivery time.
Also, with asset optimization, businesses can ensure all their assets, including transport vehicles and drivers, are being used in the best possible way and to their full capacity.
Several factors, including traffic, poor road conditions, lack of visibility across the supply chain, and high volume of shipments, lead to more transportation time and, thus, delayed deliveries. However, with smart freight management software in India that offers better visibility and helps with route optimization, businesses significantly reduce transportation time and ensure on-time deliveries.
Smart freight management software help businesses automate the majority of their operations, such as back-office tasks, sending RFQs, freight procurement, and tracking, reducing reliance on manual elements. This automation helps get more work done in less time and also reduces the chances of making errors, ensuring faster deliveries and a low overall logistics cost.
With an efficient end-to-end freight management solution, businesses can provide timely deliveries and affordable shipping and allow customers to track their orders in real time.
And when customers can track their orders and get them delivered at affordable prices without having to pay extra shipping, they’ll be happy. So, by using a freight management solution, businesses can improve customer satisfaction which is essential for any business’s success.
The freight and logistics industry in India is quite unpredictable. Last-minute requirements or changes often pop up, which cannot be usually accommodated using obsolete solutions. However, with a freight management system that offers dynamic functionalities, businesses can entertain any last-minute requirements, such as emergency orders or route changes, ensuring a seamless flow of freight at all times.
Because of poor planning, scheduling, and lack of technology integration, several trucks are half or even completely empty on their return journey leading to improper vehicle capacity utilization.
However, a freight management solution that helps with effective route and asset optimization can help deal with this issue. With a smart solution, businesses can plan trips better and ensure that the vehicle capacity is not underutilized.
Lack of real-time visibility into incidental costs, such as demurrage and detention, often impacts the bottom line and leads to delays in shipment delivery. However, with the right freight management software, businesses can get predictive alerts in case of unforeseen events such as demurrage or detention happen.
This way, businesses can expedite last-mile operations to reduce the delay to a minimum and inform the customers in case there’s a delay.
Shipsy is an end-to-end freight management and orchestration platform that helps businesses in the logistics industry run their businesses in an efficient and scalable manner.
Shipsy’s end-to-end freight management platform offers a unified dashboard where all the stakeholders can have a hawk’s eye view of the freight movement and collaborate & communicate seamlessly, allowing for integrated stakeholder management.
With the smart route and asset optimization, companies can find the most optimized route that is shortest, has the least congestion and U-turns reducing transportation time, carbon emission, and fuel consumption, ensuring timely delivery of shipments and maximum vehicle utilization.
Additionally, businesses can manage any last-minute requests or reroute the vehicles as and when required using Shipsy’s dynamic functionalities. Also, with predictive analysis, Shipsy’s end-to-end management platform sends predictive alerts to help minimize incidental costs such as demurrage or detention.
On top of the above benefits, businesses can achieve these results:
For deeper insights into how Shipsy works and how we can help your business, book a custom demo right now!
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