Four Ways Automation Streamlines Management of Multiple Couriers

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Four Ways Automation Streamlines Management of Multiple Couriers

The rapid surge in online shopping, quick deliveries, and cross-border commerce is pushing brands to think beyond standard logistics partnerships for strategic scaling. According to recent research, global retail eCommerce sales are expected to be USD 8.1 trillion by 2026, and the global parcel volume is expected to be 256 billion parcels shipped in 2027. The current trends in the market are pushing for more efficient logistics; as a result, the global logistics industry is experiencing significant growth. However, traditional fulfillment strategies that rely on single-carrier partnerships are no longer adequate and require an urgent makeover.

To achieve efficient and smart fulfillment across multiple geographies, brands and businesses are opting for cost-effective warehousing and distribution based on shipment, business, and delivery needs. This has created a demand for intelligent technologies that can manage multiple courier partnerships effectively. Let’s quickly take a look at the four awesome ways these intelligent automation solutions can help businesses manage multiple logistics partners and how businesses can benefit from them.

4 Ways automation helps in multiple courier management

#1 – Smart Order Allocation Engine

Manual order allocation is vulnerable to planning inefficiencies and comes with human limits for accomplishing optimal resource utilization. Further, as businesses scale, planning efficient order pickups, routing, and deliveries, manually, becomes impossible. Keeping track of which parcels/orders should be allocated to which courier partner based on cost, shipment, and delivery considerations is highly subjective and varies from person to person. 

On the other hand, intelligent software solutions for multiple courier management come with in-built features such as a smart order allocation engine that automatically maps the shipments with particular carriers based on multiple parameters, such as physical consignment characteristics, delivery location, delivery type, vehicle make, capacity, etc. The businesses can configure these parameters as per their business requirements and automate the order allocation while ensuring equitable distribution of load among multiple partners or strategic selection of courier partners based on serviceability and delivery requirements.

#2 – NDR and RTO Management 

Managing returns in a multiple courier ecosystem is a Herculean task that requires careful consideration of multiple factors, such as return pickup location, return consolidation center/hub location, scheduling the pickup keeping operational efficiency in mind, and more. 

Advanced automation platforms for multiple courier management offer intelligent management of RTOs and NDRs by automating the allocation of tasks, such as return pickups, transit, and consolidation at the preferred location. Further, the businesses can proactively collect reasons for returns, check them and improve their processes to keep the NDR rate in check. Finally, they can set specific performance measurement KPIs to check which particular carrier or type of shipment is registering the highest number of returns and take strategic actions to combat them. 

Some other crucial angles in NDR & RTO management are parcel damage, delivery failure, thefts, etc. Smart multiple courier management platforms, such as Shipsy, come with in-built functionalities that restrict the routing for damaged consignments to reduce the logistics costs for damaged parcels and convey the shipment status proactively to businesses/managers for quick remedial actions. The platform also tracks and tackles fake delivery attempts, offers flexible delivery scheduling to the customers, and records the incidents such as thefts, damage, loss, etc., for performance evaluation. 

#3 – CXO Dashboard

The ability to unify the operations, communications, and tasks across multiple courier partners for centralized management and consolidated collaboration is crucial for the overall system profitability. Intelligent solutions for multiple courier management offer in-built CXO dashboards with smart features and integrated capabilities for cross-functional insights and management. 

For example, businesses can easily create indents for multiple vendors, generate and settle bulk invoices, automate shipment routing for in-transit shipments, and take consolidated actions as well. They can check which partner is delivering across the SLAs and how well each one of them is performing across the set metrics for individual assessment. With direct visibility into the field operations across all the partners, businesses can easily take action in urgent situations, such as when one carrier fails to pick up the shipment on time or if the system gets an express delivery request. 

#4 – Cost Calculator (Rate, Serviceability, and TAT Masters)

Another excellent capability offered by automation-powered multiple courier management systems is the cost calculator. Businesses can easily use the solutions to create directories for three major factors – courier rates, turnaround times (TAT), and serviceability (services a partner offers). 

Now, every time a shipment is to be delivered, the system automatically checks these directories to generate a comparative price list for all the courier partners. Thus, businesses can easily choose which carrier works best for them, keeping the shipment and delivery requirements in mind. 

Further, the cost calculators are directly aggregated with the partner selection and prioritization modules, which automate the selection of a particular courier partner based on multiple factors. These factors/constraints can be set and updated by the businesses/managers as and when required, so they no longer have to manually manage the partner selection. 

Multi-carrier management solutions with intelligent automation offer highly unified carrier and logistics operations management. So, you can always keep an eye on the real-time shipment movements, digitize invoicing and billing, set KPIs for individual carrier performance assessments, and collaborate with multiple partners in a seamless manner.

Such a platform offers 100% visibility into all the 3PL operations across different geographies and empowers you with data-driven insights into core operations to unlock:

  • Up to 18% reduction in RTOs (return to origin)
  • Shrink last mile delivery costs by 14%
  • Reduce middle mile costs by 12%
  • Provide unified customer experiences
  • Boost customer experience by 28%, and much more

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