5-Step Action Plan for Seamless Logistics Optimization

As the global supply chains evolve to cater to digitally-empowered customer nuances and demand patterns, managing the innately disparate logistics components has become even more challenging. In the race to outcome competitors, diversify business offerings, and grab a larger market share, businesses are now pressed for margins. Oracle states that 11% of customers expect same-day delivery, and 40% expect their goods to be delivered within 1-2 days. However, as per McKinsey, an increased number of long-distance shipments and B2C parcel volumes means retailers may need to pay $1.15 to $6.15 extra per package. Further, next-day or same-day deliveries can cost retailers more than $15 per package.

This need for rapid fulfillment kick-started the trend of multiple partnerships for a single logistics function, and the trend will only gain traction with time. 

While multiple partner ecosystem helps businesses unlock economies of scale and amplified serviceability, it also presents them with different management challenges. Disparate management interfaces hinder unified understanding and affect strategic business decision-making. Businesses grapple with siloed data insights and often end up switching instances among multiple vendors, only to realize that basic automation alone might not be what they need.

Find how business owners, supply chain managers, and logistics professionals can break these boundaries among multiple partners and service providers and get started with unified management to unlock massive wins. 

Integrated Logistics Management – What Is It and Why Does It Matter

Integrated logistics management refers to the unified management of all the logistics and supply chain components, processes, and ecosystem elements. The integrated management systems enable centralized monitoring, tracking, planning, management, and reporting by consolidating crucial data points across multiple systems and supply chain elements. 

For instance, businesses are able to track all their shipments from a single window, irrespective of the leg of the journey, type of carrier, type of service provider, and location they are at. Integrated management in logistics is crucial for statistical accuracy and a comprehensive understanding of supply chain trends. 

Smart logistics management platforms offer AI-powered data analytics for data collected from multiple sources to facilitate highly comprehensive business intelligence and drive strategic business planning and development. Businesses can compare multiple vendors, automate order allocations based on certain criteria set by them, and ensure profitable logistics operations in all cases. 

5 Awesome Tips for Seamless Logistics Optimization

#1 – Status Standardization for Unified View

Working with multiple partners, logistics service providers, and stakeholders means different interfaces with different terminologies and highly disparate soft data. For example, a simple ‘shipment pickup’ status can be phrased in multiple ways across different vendors, and service providers, such as ‘shipment pick up done’, ‘shipment picked’, ‘pickup complete’, ‘pickup done’, and more.

This becomes a major bottleneck for logistics professionals and supply chain managers, as they are unable to automate consignment status management across different systems. Different messaging also disrupts the communication that goes from business to end customer, thereby degrading the overall CX.

Intelligent logistics platforms with advanced functionalities overcome this pain point via status standardization, where every type of consignment status/terminology is processed across different systems and presented to businesses in a standardized format on a single interface. Hence, a manager is no longer manually processing the data sheets, shipment records, or warehouse logs to compile a master record.

#2 – Effortless Integrations for Increased Functionalities 

Another crucial element of integrated logistics management is effortless collaboration across different service providers for seamless services. One epitome in this regard is the trend of multiple payment methods. JP Morgan recently outlined that the digital wallet industry is growing at a rate of 23% annually, and it will account for nearly a third of eCommerce payments by 2023. Also, as per Shopify, nearly 50% of customers would abandon their purchases if they didn’t find their preferred payment method.

To resonate with these demands, businesses need strong collaborations for increased serviceability, such as 5 to 7 payment options and advanced functionalities, such as accepting online payments for COD orders.

All these functionalities are impossible with legacy software because of the obvious gap and siloed operational structure. On the other hand, logistics automation platforms offer hassle-free no-code integrations with multiple third-party service providers, such as payment processors, online shops, cash management vendors, etc. Thus, businesses can increase their serviceability without investing in in-house engineering and deliver across customer expectations.

#3 – Optimizing Field Operations for Operational Efficiencies

Field operations, aka the logistics and transportation movements, are one of the major cost drivers in the entire ecosystem. The inability to manage, monitor, track, and optimize the costs of field operations can erode the bottom lines at an unprecedented pace. 

Integrated logistics and supply chain management platforms overcome this challenge by automating route planning and optimizing the on-road functions. AI/ML algorithms are used to generate the most optimal paths and highly efficient routes for multiple deliveries. Real-time road and traffic conditions are managed on the go to ensure real-time risk mitigation and improve SLA adherence. The features are coupled with other smart optimization techniques to reduce the number of miles traveled and increase the number of deliveries per trip per vehicle and per rider to unlock excellent efficiencies. 

#4 – Asset Optimization for Improved Resource Utilization

Assets form a crucial component of the logistics ecosystem and comprise drivers, vehicles, storage facilities, loaders, equipment, etc. Optimizing asset use increases man-hours savings and reduces critical logistics success metrics, such as order-to-ship time, ship-to-delivery time, and hub-to-hub movements. 

However, optimizing asset use across the entire ecosystem is impossible in a manually managed organization. Smart automation platforms integrate all the logistics assets, automate resource allocation and ensure stringent monitoring via real-time status reporting. Businesses can set specific custom parameters for optimizing asset use, such as consignment weight/volume/height/nature, vehicle type/make/capacity/cost, fuel type, rider type, delivery location, and more. 

All these parameters are fed to the optimizer engine that utilizes the in-built intelligent algorithms to increase asset use, boost SLA adherence, and reduce miles traveled, ultimately leading to improved efficiency and reduced costs.

#5 – Real-Time Analytics for Granular Visibility

Advanced data analytics finds rich applications in the logistics and supply chain management industry as it facilitates rapid data analysis and generates highly actionable data insights for business decisions. Third-party data analytics are costly and time-consuming, which means by the time the report is generated, the data relevance is reduced. On the other hand, investing in cutting-edge technology-powered logistics platforms changes the entire game.

Businesses can analyze near real-time data, generate reports on the go, and let their data work for them at a rapid pace. Smart no-code analytics platforms such as Shipsy BI offer DIY data analytics and data querying capabilities to drive no-code analytics and generate highly consumable data visualizations.

Getting started with the right automation and right technology partners can help businesses across all industries optimize their processes to really break boundaries and work in a truly seamless manner.