How using a TMS can help revamp your transportation process
As freight demand falls off and contract rates decline, capacity continues to loosen amid an uncertain economic climate. Shippers of all sizes are looking for ways to uplevel their transportation strategies and keep up with a fast-changing market. From renegotiating existing contracts and accessing new carriers to benchmarking operations and using data to optimize shipments, driving operational success in the freight industry requires enhanced visibility into all stages of the transportation process. For many shippers, achieving better visibility involves reevaluating and revamping their transportation processes. And this begins with embracing digitally-enabled freight planning and moving beyond manual tools and processes. Enter: The transportation management system (TMS), a logistics control tower that empowers shippers to scale their transportation operations to better prepare for market volatility. Whether you’re moving FTL, LTL, refrigerated, or flatbed, there’s always room for improvement in your supply chain. Implementing a TMS helps shippers target these areas effectively by enabling more predictability, providing better service expectations to customers, and streamlining operations to cut costs.
The state of TMS adoption
While more than half of enterprise shippers have already adopted a TMS, only 25% of mid-market shippers can say the same.
25%
Deploying a TMS can seem a daunting task. But a simplified, cost-effective transportation management solution has the potential to unlock immediate ROI for growing businesses.
A TMS can help cut costs and reduce delays by: - Sourcing the right carrier partners at the right price - Leveraging analytics to determine the optimal mode and lane - Tracking shipments in real-time on a single, consolidated platform - Automating workflows to enable faster, more accurate documentation - Improving service levels by ensuring the timely delivery of goods
One key benefit of adopting a TMS is the ability to leverage market intelligence in procurement planning. Sourcing the right capacity at the right price is critical in a market environment that’s constantly evolving. By optimizing transportation RFPs, businesses can become more agile with access to real-time freight data, accurate carrier estimates, and effective lanes. These insights will arm you with the ability to foster strategic partnerships with both new and incumbent carriers. A TMS can aggregate and assess factors that determine future rate changes and market conditions, and help you use that information to secure advantageous contracts—leading to potential cost savings in the long run. Take this sustainable packaging company’s journey with TMS. As demand for environmentally conscious packaging solutions began ramping up in the food and beverages markets, expanding its transportation network while improving sourcing practices became an immediate priority for the company. By partnering with a more strategic mix of asset-based carriers, reducing reliance on the volatile spot market, locking in optimum rates, and streamlining its RFP process, Uber Freight was able to help their operations achieve a 98% on-time performance with its shipments. Adaptability is key to achieving scale. As rates continue to fluctuate, data-enabled insights are necessary for shippers to save that extra dollar. Consider revamping your supply chain strategy with a comprehensive TMS to optimize your RFPs and establish dependable relationships with the right carriers.
Get smart with sourcing
Achieving complete visibility across all stages of the supply chain—from manufacturing to warehousing to delivery—is critical for any shipper as they expand their business. The ability to track shipments in transit means your business has access to the live location and status of all moving freight, from origin to destination. Sharing real-time data on a single, consolidated platform can streamline communication, promote accountability among distribution centers and carrier partners, set accurate delivery windows and, ultimately, create a better customer experience. The value of supply chain visibility isn’t lost on the freight industry. Today, 98% of shippers believe real-time visibility plays an important role in their tendering process, and more than half consider it a prerequisite for carrier selection. Leaning on Uber Freight’s world-class logistics expertise and technology, one major breakfast foods company automated its documentation processes across all global operations. Uber Freight's TMS enabled the company’s teams worldwide to share shipment documentation in real time through a single web portal, thereby eliminating the need for emails and spreadsheets. This shift provided the company with a 24/7 control tower view of its network, allowing them to monitor their operations efficiently. Transportation contracts, such as a bill of lading (BOL) or a sea waybill, could now be easily identified and converted into the right format for carriers—at any time, anywhere. From ensuring routing guide compliance to optimizing shipment execution, a trusted TMS was vital to the company’s global success. It’s time for shippers—large and small—to embrace digitally-enabled shipment tracking to keep up with rising service expectations among online shoppers. A TMS provides a more comprehensive view of the supply chain and, in turn, gives shippers access to new information to forecast shipping cycles, optimize routes, and save on operational costs.
Ensure 360-degree visibility with a control tower view
By implementing a TMS solution, shippers can gain comprehensive visibility into their transportation network, optimize their operations, and ultimately deliver a better experience for their customers. Our goal is to empower our customers to take control of their logistics processes and drive operational success in an ever-changing market.
Steve Barber, Vice President of Products, Uber Freight
Improving inventory flow and storage is a top priority for shippers of all sizes. Of course, carrying a certain level of inventory is important to mitigate supply disruptions—but keeping too much on hand can lead to wasted costs, especially if the products are perishable. By combining a TMS with warehouse management system (WMS) software, businesses can analyze consumer demand, verify product availability, manage stock replenishment, and ensure that proper levels of inventory are maintained at all times. From calculating potential carrying costs to managing interest on borrowed funds used to purchase the products, a comprehensive transportation management solution can help you optimize your resources and save on supply costs. One CPG company’s success with Uber Freight’s TMS offers insight into what’s possible when a shipper fully embraces digital solutions. By automating its load tracking and appointment scheduling processes, Uber Freight’s TMS eliminated the need for teams to manually call carriers and update spreadsheets. Access to dashboards, which track important carrier KPIs like on-time arrivals and departures, provided better visibility into freight movement. Further integration of predictive analytics and machine learning tools also meant that the company could make more proactive supply chain decisions by identifying potential supply disruptions and forecasting market changes. A TMS can reinforce your supply chain with access to measurable KPIs, real-time shipment updates, and business analytics. Keeping track of this information helps shippers become more flexible and adapt their inventory flow to fast-changing supply and demand conditions. It also helps them create resilient supply chains that can efficiently navigate unforeseen market disruptions.
Build a resilient, flexible supply chain
Move more with less
Consider automating your parcel lifecycle to maintain a high volume of orders during peak shipping season. Armed with a parcel TMS, shippers can optimize routes and inventory management, as well as improve on existing packaging and picking processes.
Modernize your small parcel management by: - Breaking down operational silos - Enabling deeper supply chain collaboration - Using data to consolidate and streamline parcel shipments - Tracking shipment status in real time on a shared platform
More than ever, convenience is vital to online shoppers. Retailers and distributors across the country are struggling to satisfy evolving service expectations. On top of rising transportation costs, persistent supply chain bottlenecks, driver shortages, and navigating relationships with suppliers and carriers, shippers face renewed pressures to provide a seamless delivery experience to their customers. With a TMS, shippers can optimize resources for shipments to better meet timely delivery demand. Beyond real-time tracking capabilities, an effective transportation management solution enables shippers to book carriers, identify paperwork, and make data-driven decisions based on available KPIs. By automating workflows, shippers can reduce processing delays, eliminate unnecessary hardware expenses, save on labor costs, and enable faster delivery. A popular sportswear company partnered with Uber Freight to develop an integration layer that transformed and routed data between its various warehouse management systems and Uber Freight’s TMS—creating a single, unified architecture that solved entrenched system silos and helped the company service a high volume of orders. By determining the right mode of shipment for the right number of loads, Uber Freight’s multi-carrier TMS helped the apparel company streamline transportation, avoid disruption, as well as optimize carrier and service method selection. Simplifying your shipping process with a digital platform not only allows for better visibility, but also empowers your business to provide a better customer experience. Transparency across all stages of the supply chain ensures accountability among shippers, carriers, and distribution centers—and accountability leads to improvements in service.
Automate workflows to keep pace with customer demands
The rapid ups and downs of the freight market, combined with rising costs and the unpredictability of supply chain disruptions, is pushing shippers to adopt digital freight planning as a way to build a more adaptable, agile transportation network—and ultimately, save costs in the long run. There are a lot of moving pieces in logistics. From sourcing the right carriers and optimizing routes to ensuring timely delivery with real-time freight tracking, an effective TMS enables shippers to take control of their goods in an increasingly volatile industry. Learn more about how applying a TMS can drive business success.
Uber Freight has been recognized by Gartner, a leading research and advisory company, for its market understanding, product capabilities, and marketing execution in the TMS space.
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