TMS for All? – Life in the Slow Lane

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This is the first in a three-part series and is set in the late 1990s.

When it came to understanding what an early TMS could do for shippers, it was a classic example of the saying “You don’t know what you don’t know.”

Buried in paper, faxing, emails and phone calls only to have skilled staff manually enter order data into Excel spreadsheets, shipping managers at small and midsize businesses had no idea what cost cutting and revenue generation opportunities they were missing.

These logistics professionals, however, became painfully aware of problems with this approach when mistakes were made, deliveries were delayed, costs were added and actual shipping limped along at a snail’s pace. Even worse, freight costs were climbing.

And nobody was happy. Shippers had no means to apply their logistics and supply chain skills. AR and AP were calling in with problems. Customers experienced a lack of consistency with some deliveries. And those seeking the status of their shipments faced long waits or went without. Updates were available in unreal time.

All this sounds like a scary movie, with shippers lacking visibility into and control of their supply chains, but it was real life before small and midsize business (SMB) had any technology-driven systems to help shoulder the freight shipping load. It’s tough to solve a pressing problem without a solution.

Is Bigger Better?

While SMBs struggled mightily with daily shipping operations, logistics managers at some of the world’s large corporations were beginning to implement something called a TMS. Back then, what passed for a transportation management system was essentially an on-site hardware platform with software.

The TMS was pricey to say the least, took forever to implement and needed staff on hand to handle its care and feeding, which included installing seemingly endless software upgrades and scrambling to react in the event of an emergency at the location at which it resided. (Single point of failure).

Early big-box TMSes were quite expensive.

And having spent megabucks on the TMS and committed to a multi-year contract for the onsite system, came almost unimaginable pressure from C-level execs to start showing a ROI, after the big-box-and-software system finally went live.

Back to the Past

I don’t have any issues with early TMSes whatsoever, especially as I was in the freight shipping business during this era. The options were seriously limited and were limited to the large corporations willing to spend and commit big to one of these on-prem box systems.

Remember, it was the onsite approach or no approach at all. Everything was on site without viable hosted options way back then. Phone systems, mainframes, data centers, storage, servers and all software were at the company site. And all these key IT infrastructure and processing elements require administration, management, monitoring and oversight.

Ask around to see who remembers long-distance calls, wired phone systems or life before real working from home. And you thought VCRs flashing 12:00 are funny.

The early days of TMSes were primitive

The Road Ahead

All the while, a new era of computing was dawning that would give rise to the broader application of advanced technology that would set the stage for the early days of freight intelligence and TMS options that more companies and their overworked logistics departments could begin to consider for their shipping needs.

Tune in next week, as I continue the freight shipping story forward toward more modern-day technology approaches that gave rise to TMS solutions and alternatives for a broader base of businesses.

Everyone wants to get their hands on advanced new tech products and service, but only a subset can afford it. Change that with a free 30-day trial of Kuebix TMS today.

Logistics to Avoid the Toys R Us Trauma

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For those not in the shipping business, news that Toys R Us filed for bankruptcy protection had the same effect as a surprise Gatorade bath. For the rest of with experience in the logistics business, this was just the latest stark reminder of the long-running battle between retailers and online sellers.

It’s next to impossible to drive in urban and suburban areas without noticing the telltale signs of the ongoing struggle. Empty storefronts and going-out-of-business sale banners have been popping up in some of the strip plazas and malls I drive by on a regular basis.

Still, the Toys R Us news comes just a few months before yearend holiday shopping begins in earnest. Many of the company’s woes are connected to it carrying billions in debt and spending hundreds of millions annually to service it. But another part of its predicament seems to be supply chain related.

In an extensive piece chronicling the company’s challenges in the Wall Street Journal , Toys R Us CEO Chief David Brandon was quoted as saying in court papers that the firm had fallen behind some competitors and cited “our inability to provide expedited shipping options, and our lack of a subscription-based delivery service.”

Logistics intelligence can play a vital role in helping retailers survive in these tough times, and thrive. A flexible supply chain, powered by a solid transportation management system (TMS) can definitely be part of the solution for retailers looking to better compete with e-commerce companies for customers.

I’ve seen plenty in working extensively in the retail and ecommerce industries. I’ve been asked the following question countless times over the many years since ecommerce began.

How can a TMS help retailers?

-Implement technology to help support business functions. The right TMS can help streamline the retailer’s supply chain. Logistics managers need visibility into their operations as well as the control to manage them in a way that knocks out inefficiencies, cuts costs and provides revenue opportunities.

-Less product in pipeline. Once they have control and management of their transportation systems, retailers can adjust them so that they keep less product in the supply chain, which incurs reduces freight cost. The opposite – keeping more coming, is also a benefit as predictable peak demand periods approach.

-Improve the customer experience. How many times have we heard a sales associate tell us “we don’t have any more in the back room and I don’t know when the next truck shipment is coming in?” The right TMS can allow the retailer to take control of their inbound freight by providing visibility to all deliveries, ensuring on-time deliveries and reduced freight costs.

–Quicker delivery. E-commerce companies have earned props for quickly delivering product, and rightly so. But two can play that game. By using a TMS to shorten their delivery intervals, retailers can make sure they have enough stock on hand.

–Optimize your supply chain. For this, you need a TMS with a global logistics community, which is essentially a real-time, online members-only network that connects all these parties online so they can collaborate across supply chains to find the best (sometimes fastest) and least expensive means to get cargo from origination to destination and from destination to consumers.

The Road Ahead

Investing in technology to enhance and evolve the way you do business is the way to drive your company forward from a logistics standpoint. There are TMS options that don’t require a big spend on hardware and staff, or a long, drawn out implementation. You need a quick ROI as well as a system that gives you control, visibility and cost savings ASAP.

It’s well worth your time to check out a TMS built with the freight intelligence necessary to advance in the toughest of times. Think about that the next time you’re driving past a shopping plaza and see the sad signs.

 

Technologies to Tackle the Driver Shortage

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When you consider that the average age of a trucker is 56, you realize it’s high time to up efforts to recruit and retain younger drivers to address the driver shortage and ensure a future for this profession.

So how do we find younger, mechanically-savvy recruits? What would make millennials want to drive a truck for a living? The answer to the driver shortage is to hit young age groups where they live – which is online or on their phones. The bait on the hook would be technology, with the use of mobile and virtual reality front and center.

After all, when was the last time you were out and about where you couldn’t see at least one person on their smartphone?

Going Mobile

Mobile technology makes great sense as a recruiting tool from the shipping industry side as it’s used for so many aspects of transportation management and logistics be it fleet and order tracking, route optimization, or backhaul opportunity matching. All apply to the legions of individual truckers, where mobile can be a lifeline.

Truck owner/operators have a growing field of mobile tech options for making the best use and the most money at the least cost. Just look at Trucker Tools, which offers a single smartphone app to handle all the function previously only affordable by large corporations with sizable fleets of trucks. And it’s free.

The long list of things truckers can do with the Trucker Tools smartphone app is: find the nearest truck stop, get real-time diesel prices, and find the fastest truck route to your destination and more. The app’s Load Track feature enable truckers to receive automated pickup and delivery confirmations. Other features help drivers find medical aid, vehicle sales and service locations, collision repair joints and even Walmarts.

This is what one of their trucker users – Mike Huber – said of the mobile phone app: “It’s a great idea. It’s super easy to use, with a down-to-earth approach.”

Virtual Reality

Now what if you took one of the hottest consumer technologies out there – virtual reality (VR) technology – and match it with the young age groups that were first to embrace it for gaming – but use it for training and education? It adds a whole new dimension and fun to book learning.

I’m certainly not the first to think of this, but it’s clearly being acted on.

Think of the potential for success here. Beyond enhancing online gaming, VR has captured the collective imagination of sports businesses, marketers, the tourism industry and more. Pro QBs use VR systems (a headset, smartphone and app) to get speed their training by getting extra reps without even touching a football field.

Trucker wannabes could be presented with a 3D scenario in which he or she is graded based on decisions. Do-over are quick and fun, when you don’t have to stay after, or re-study to re-take a test. VR has already been used along with gaming for training in the military.

Young age groups have grown up with VR for gaming, likely logging more hours online than some truckers spend on the road! This is why VR could be a great tool in the larger process of attracting and creating truckers using the tech that’s part of their lives.

The Road Ahead

It’s clear as day that technology is the key to addressing the driver shortage.  Mobile and VR play starring roles in intensifying efforts to recruit drivers from young age groups.  These are by no means the only ways to meet the challenge. So, stay tuned; we’ll be hitting this issue again.

Technology is bringing new visibility and efficiencies across the supply chain as well. Try Kuebix Free LTL Freight Rate Calculator or take a minute and learn more about Kuebix TMS

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Irma, Harvey, a TMS and You

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With Hurricane Irma ready to deliver the back half of a devastating one-two punch to the south in the days ahead, you’re freight intelligence will once again put your TMS to the test. For those whose operations weren’t effected by Hurricane Harvey, let’s review what we learned or re-learned.

State of Emergency. Whether it’s MASH episodes, war movies or your favorite emergency rescue show, priority one is to stop the bleeding. That means deleting zip codes that either the feds or the state’s emergency management agency have closed to deliveries (and pickups).

Supply Chain Revamp. After you learn what supplies are needed in the area affected by the act-of-God event, you need to do a bit of reengineering with your supply chain to locate the sorely needed freight and plan with your carriers how to get it on its way to help power the recovery effort.

Reworking your freight shipping to accommodate the impact of natural disasters is no walk in the park, but it’s a shorter one when you consider a robust TMS and its one-source for talking to all your carriers and viewing changes in real-time and acting accordingly.

No Manual? That’s opposed to the plight of shippers who still rely on manual processes that include visiting numerous websites for critical information over and over, sending emails, power dialing and faxing that waste time when you’re trying the hardest to be quick and flexible.

Real-time communications. As the recovery evolves, freight shippers can really use truck and freight tracking functionality to flexible manage their assets – that’s a fancy way of saying know where your trucks are and be aware of their every move.

Go Mobile. This is where mobile technology shines. In dark times, you can reach drivers and they can reach you using nothing more than a smartphone and a simply app download. Yeah, there’s an app for that and it can be part of your TMS.

Multi-modal. Cover all delivery options. We saw – and still see – with Hurricane, Harvey in Houston that in worst case scenarios even delivery beyond trucks wasn’t initially an option. You probably saw the ad-hoc navy of folks with boats hitting the water to deliver emergency aid to the hardest hit areas.

With this in mind, it’s best to have shipping options which means the ability to cover all modes of freight delivery – ground, air and ship – in a single system.  Many complex problems can be solved simply by using multi-modal freight shipping.

Post Event Assessment. Once things return to fairly normal, the freight shipper still faces a big challenge: figuring out the price tag for surviving the latest act of God. A well-equipped TMS can help you figure out the costs associated with reacting to a disaster.

Justify spends. While a strong TMS can help you better deal with acts of God and man-made disasters, you’ll find that adding muscle often means going beyond a base system to include integrations, special apps and even managed services. Though this requires new spending for those who aren’t bulked up to tackle tragedies, look at the costs you incurred in dealing with the very latest act of God.

Cost avoidance itself can help you justify additions and improvements to your TMS.

The Road Ahead for TMS

We’ve all heard the saying “proper preparation prevents poor performance.”  That’s all well and good but freight shippers and carriers with years in the business know planning for the unplanned is far easier said than done.

But a robust TMS will be able to lighten the load.

 

Try our LTL Freight Rate Calculator. Interested in learning more about Kuebix TMS today?

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Freight Intelligence: Learning from the Mayweather-McGregor Mess

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I wonder what those with freight intelligence were thinking if they were among those who were able to watch the live stream of the Mayweather-McGregor fight.

Fans usually aren’t still arguing about who got hit the hardest several days after a title fight. That’s unless of course the fighters weren’t the ones that took the hardest shots the night of the pay-per-view match between UFC Star Connor McGregor and undefeated boxer Floyd Money Mayweather.

Fans in record numbers showed Showtime the money for the heavily anticipated fight but because of technical difficulties with the Internet streaming version of the PPV TV contest, many didn’t get their money’s worth. One company had claimed it had all aspects of the production handled in advance.

What actually happened? Paying fans missed some rounds of the fight, only to be directed to customer service numbers (on a Saturday night no less) or to streaming sites to watch the event illegally. On Monday, Showtime claimed it would issues refunds. Later that day, the company was sued for poor quality streams. Can it get any worse?

A Teachable Moment for Shipping

Only if you don’t use this mess as a teachable moment, which it most certainly is for all parts of the shipping world.
So, what did we in the freight intelligence business learn – or re-learn – from the Mayweather-McGregor mess?

  • With shipping, you have to pick a partner that can scale to meet your needs, up to pre-identified peaks in demand, whether it’s the days before yearend holidays or hours before a boxing match begins streaming live. This wasn’t an act of God.
  • No surprises. Eliminate the element of surprise. Planning for your big event or extended peak period with your carriers. Everyone needs to know what’s coming to avoid unpleasant surprises. There were many weeks of advanced hype before the Mayweather-McGregor fight – and most sports fans knew of it far earlier.
  • Redundancy. Consider splitting freight across multiple carriers and multiple routes. You do this to have a much better chance of surviving a big problem if one of your options fails and you still have a customer awaiting a big delivery for a big event, promo, etc. Carrier and route diversity give you a better chance.
  • Plan for spikes whether you expect them or not. I bet 60% of fans waited til the hours leading up to the fight to order it. That shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone given the high profile of the long-hyped fight.
  • Customer service. You need partners in the roughest situations, carriers that will be there with you in tough times and do everything in their power to help you in your time of need. You don’t want anyone that doesn’t answer their customer service line or that pushes you off to someone else. The very last thing you need when the going gets tough is for your partners to get invisible.
  • Live and learn with TMS data and analytics. How did things run, or not run, the last time you experienced a similar peak? Can you adapt accordingly? Listen to what the data tells you. Re-read the reports we provide.
  • Use TMS features and flexibility. When the shipping begins, use real-time shipment tracking to help you spot the beginning of a problem or problems. If you spot the beginning of what could be a peak, you can use the flexibility of your TMS and carriers to route around problems.

Get Freight Intelligence

Failure to plan for peaks results in messes like the Mayweather-McGregor situation that were largely avoidable. Trust me here because I boxed when I was younger. Nothing hits harder than a company that’s knocked out by a peak demand fail. Not Mayweather, not McGregor, not even Ali.

Don’t get hit with peak shipping problems. Get freight intelligence instead.

Try our free Freight Rate Calculator!

APIs Rising: Understanding the Newest Integration Technology

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I don’t think anyone would disagree with me when I say the shipping ecosystem owes a huge debt of gratitude to EDI. Many decades after companies in numerous industries implemented it to enable electronic communications and change the way they did business, EDI is still alive and well.

But as APIs have ascended, I’ve seen them grow in popularity as the preferred means to integrate shippers and carriers. Why? The EDI approach positions middleware and transaction processing as a sort of middleman. That can take time and create inefficiencies in the supply chain.

In the shipping world, this has given rise to wider use of application programming interfaces (API) which allow tighter integration of shippers with carriers.

APIs allow for rapid onboarding of customers and their negotiated carrier rates into the Kuebix TMS. This can be done in the time it takes to book a flight online.

When it comes to connecting to ship, APIs eliminate the middleman, and create a direct connect that delivers critical information – such as tracking info on shipments – to both parties in the transaction. Better still, APIs are the easiest way to integrate functionality into transportation management systems (TMS).

Enter Integrations

Here’s where the payoff comes. TMS vendors such as Kuebix, have created a menu of integrations that can be added to the system to support added functionalities. Customers can add purchase order, bill of lading, and shipment status and tracking to streamline these processes.

And just like a diner-friendly restaurant, items not on the standard menu can be created or customized to the specific needs of the customer shipping freight.

TMS vendors can provide standard integrations that they have developed as well as integrations created by third parties, all so you can optimize supply chain management to meet the often-top corporate priority of cutting costs in the supply chain.

Once integrations have been added to a customer’s TMS, the time savings and streamlining can really begin. And it’s the beginning of the end for inefficiencies.

Integrations You Can Count On

Let’s take carrier invoice integration as an example. The shipper receives his or her invoices in the TMS for automatic invoice audit. If an invoice does not match the agreed upon rate for the shipment, the TMS will automatically create a rate exception claim. Sound great? It should, given that you can’t squeeze savings out of a process that you don’t directly control.

How about adding a purchase and sales order integration? Logistics managers can use their TMS to simplify the creation and tracking of true landed cost down to the SKU level and streamline shipping freight.

The hits will just keep coming in the form of additional integrations. Complex EDI, SOAP or REST integrations can be simplified with a standard or customer interface that seamlessly ties into an ERP system. That’s a big part of a supply chain management strategy.

What About EDI?

The rise of API integrations doesn’t mean an end to EDI integrations by any means. But those logistics managers looking to streamline and knock time out of common processes that are essential to their supply chain operations might want to check out the API approach and available integrations.

See how a carrier 210 integration works:

 

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Who’s Accountable for the Interconnected Supply Chain?

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As the world’s supply chains become increasingly interconnected, the responsibility for ensuring a smooth, end-to-end process starts to fall on the shoulders of a lot more suppliers, distributors, and business partners. Faced with this reality, companies must not only ensure that their own processes and procedures are running smoothly, but that their suppliers are also doing their jobs.

Achieving this goal across thousands (or even just a few dozen) stakeholders—many of which are Tier 2 or Tier 3 suppliers that play lesser roles in the manufacturing/distribution process—is a monumental task made easier with technology.

Here are three ways that you can use a cloud-based, connected portal to overcome this challenge:

  1. Use technology to get smaller suppliers on the radar screen. Most of the time, 20 percent of your suppliers generate 80 percent of your business. That leaves a full 80 percent of vendors that don’t drive much volume, but that need a way to communicate with you to keep you informed about their own manufacturing schedules, delays, and related issues. Using technology, you can loop in these smaller stakeholders and improve efficiency with increased visibility and collaboration.
  2. Create a process for non-compliance in the cloud. In the event that your suppliers fail to follow through on their commitments, use a non-compliance program to hold them accountable, administer fines, or take other actions. This can all be handled through a very automated process in the cloud, where everyone shares in the pain of non-compliance (not just your own company). The suppliers that hurts you company’s efficiency levels by not delivering the goods on time, for example, should be held accountable and forced to share in the pain that your own firm is feeling (i.e., unhappy customers, high shipping costs due to the need to expedite orders, and so forth).
  3. Hook your suppliers into a cloud portal. Let’s say you need 200,000 widgets over a 24-month period, and without these widgets you can’t make your own goods. If you don’t get your widgets on time, you can’t produce and deliver your product on time, resulting in unhappy customers and lost revenue. Avoid this trap by setting your suppliers up on a cloud portal. This will allow for collaboration between buyers and suppliers and provide visibility over upcoming orders and potential delays. For the sake of the above example, your supplier would commit to delivering 10,000 widgets every month on an agreed-upon date. If the date passes without a delivery, your supplier should be held accountable.

These strategies can also be applied with carriers that don’t meet on-time delivery expectations. Using technology, you can peel back the onion and figure out why those expectations weren’t met (e.g., the truck arrived but the freight wasn’t ready to ship yet), pinpoint the real problems, and get to the root cause analysis (RCA) quickly and efficiently.

 

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Three Tips for Overcoming Common Supply Chain Problems that Cut into Profits

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The salesperson that expedites an order to overnight airfreight because a customer calls to see why it hasn’t arrived yet, the supplier that isn’t being held accountable for its inability to fulfill an order on time, and the carrier that consistently fails to meet shipment delivery expectations all add costs to their companies’ supply chains.

To make matters worse, these three culprits are all either “on the inside” or acting as valuable outside partners for a firm whose supply chain is leaking revenues. Here are three ways to plug these leaks and ensure that you’re operating in the most cost-effective manner possible:

  1. Cut down on expedited freight shipments. No one really ever gets in trouble for expediting freight, even though it adds up to tremendous costs over time. This is where technology comes into the picture. Imagine a solution that establishes acceptable thresholds for expedited fees. If a requested shipment exceeds that threshold, a superior receives a message on his or her phone to either approve or deny the request.
  2. Hold external partners accountable. Companies don’t operate as silos anymore, and the supply chain as a whole has become increasingly interconnected. That puts pressure on companies to not only ensure that their own processes and procedures are running smoothly, but that their suppliers are also doing their jobs. Online collaboration portals, for example, not only enable interconnectivity between buyers and suppliers, but it also provides visibility over upcoming orders and potential delays.
  3. Question why things didn’t turn out as expected. When you rate your carriers, you probably look closely at key performance indicators (KPIs) like on-time delivery and total transportation costs, but the rest of the measures probably fall by the wayside. By using technology to centralize and more deeply analyze data, you can actually peel back the onion and figure out why an order didn’t arrive on time (i.e., a truck couldn’t pick up the freight as scheduled because the supplier didn’t have the shipment ready).

Tactical changes may work for fixing little problems across the supply chain, but for the best possible impact shippers really need to look more closely at how people are doing things and what can be done to make the process more efficient. Using technology to achieve complete supply chain visibility is a key component of this mission.

 

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The New “Little Black Book”

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Think about it. Truck brokerages used to have these “little black books” filled with the contact names and numbers of independent drivers who were scattered throughout the country. When the brokerage needed a driver to haul a load across the U.S., it flipped through its black book and found one who was ready, willing, and able to handle the job.

Fast-forward to 2017 and the transportation environment has “come a long way baby,” as they say. There are about 7.8 million trucking companies operating on our roads with four or less trucks and most have no sales forces. While in the past these companies relied solely on brokerages to feed them their business, today the industry is turning to digital freight matching (DFM) platforms to serve as their modern-day little black books. “DFM lets shippers directly and almost immediately find drivers with capacity to transport their truckload, partial truckload, and less-than-truckload (LTL) freight on the right types of trucks on the dates and routes they need,” writes Industrial Distribution’s Andrew Kelley in Digital Freight Matching and the New Era of Freight Logistics.

“Shippers get competitive and transparent rates upfront and can track in-transit and delivery details so they always know the status of their shipments.” DFM also eliminates the protracted processes and added costs inherent in working through middlemen, Kelley notes. For drivers, DFM platforms provide “know-before-you-go” visibility upfront (i.e., insights into whether there’s a load at the drop-off to haul back).

At the most basic level, DFMs connect providers and ensure that the right entity is moving the right freight to the right place and at the right time. From a cost standpoint, DFMs replace more traditional rate negotiations and enhance visibility into those thousands of independent trucking firms. At any given time, for example, a shipper can see a truck’s location, have transparency over the associated costs, and gain insights into important points like on-time delivery.

Now here’s the best part:  By integrating DFMs with their transportation management systems (TMS), companies can access this whole new world of carriers and freight rates from a TMS that provide visibility and predictive analytics for optimal logistics decisions. I often joke that within minutes my 11-year-old daughter could begin processing shipments in Kuebix, and that the software would ensure that she’s making the right transportation decisions. That’s a pretty powerful thing, and it’s being driven by technology that streamlines processes and helps companies work much more efficiently than they ever did during the “black book” era of freight management.

 

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Don’t Let the Truck Driver Shortage Hit Your Bottom Line

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Two years ago, American Trucking Associations was talking about a 50,000-person gap between the number of truck drivers currently working and the number of them needed to run the nation’s over-the-road (OTR) transportation network.

That gap has since widened and is expected to grow over the next few years.

In Who’s to Blame for the Trucker Shortage?, Wall Street Journal writer Lauren Weber writes about the industry’s 80-90% employee turnover levels (a number that fluctuates based on current shipment levels) and how that turnover impacts the trucking industry as a whole.

And in The Big Rig: Trucking and the Decline of the American Dream, Steve Viscelli points out that many of the 800,000-or-so long-haul truckload carrier drivers are classified as independent contractors, meaning they receive no benefits, and are often barely making ends meet.

“It’s brutal on your family, on your body, on your life.” Viscelli told SupplyChainDigest, noting that turnover at some carriers is 300 percent. In other words, those companies are hiring three people for one job over the course of a year.

Regardless of the root cause, the driver shortage directly impacts shippers’ bottom lines and is pushing them to rethink the way they approach transportation. As it gets even more difficult to secure significantly discounted freight rates, the push will become even stronger.

And because no one is jumping at the chance to become a truck driver these days, shippers can’t just rely on extra capacity and sharp negotiating tactics with carriers to lower their costs. Add in the fact that companies like Amazon continue to push the envelope on two-day and next-day delivery windows and transportation’s role in the end-to-end supply chain becomes more vital than ever.

So what’s the answer? As transportation costs continue to climb, shippers have to get more creative. They need to step out of the box and think of new ways to gain efficiencies, drive cost reductions, and offset larger issues like the driver shortage.

That’s where technology comes into the picture. By giving shippers high levels of visibility across their entire transportation networks—and connectivity among all partners—cloud-based Transportation Management Systems (TMS) are helping companies connect in one place to less-than-truckload, truckload, and parcel carriers; receive real-time quotes using direct carrier rates; and request and receive spot quotes using a single shipment management interface.

At the end of the day, freight is becoming more complicated and expensive just as technology is becoming more sophisticated and comprehensive. In the future, all companies will not only have solid visibility over their transportation operations, but also real-time connectivity with all of their stakeholders.

To compete effectively and offset challenges like the truck driver shortage, shippers will have to think beyond the “beat up carriers and get lower rates” mentality and leverage technology to work better, smarter, and faster in our changing logistics world.

Watch this video to see how easy it is to create LTL, TL and parcel shipments in Kuebix

Try Kuebix Freight Rate Calculator to get LTL Freight Rate

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Big Data

Why is Big Data Such a Big Deal?

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If the amount of data flowing into, out of, and within the four walls of your company is out of control, you’re not alone. Organizations of all sizes are experiencing the impact of the Information Age, and even government agencies admit that they’re feeling overwhelmed by data fatigue right now.

The National Security Administration isn’t even immune to this problem. In NSA is so overwhelmed with data, it’s no longer effective, says whistleblower, William Binney, a former NSA official who spent more than three decades at the agency, said the U.S. government’s mass surveillance programs have become so engorged with data that they are no longer effective, losing vital intelligence in the fray.

Credit that fact that the world’s data volumes have grown in astronomical leaps over the last few years with creating this level of data fatigue. And as the variety and velocity of data has grown, the usefulness of traditional data warehousing strategies has decreased exponentially.

It Keeps Going and Going and Going…

By 2025, research firm IDC believes the total amount of digital data created by the world will reach 180 zettabytes, up from 4.4 zettabytes in 2013. The astounding growth comes from both the number of devices generating data as well as the number of sensors in each device… approximately 11 billion devices connect to the Internet now. The figure is expected to nearly triple to 30 billion by 2020 and then nearly triple again to 80 billion five years later.

What many companies don’t realize is that with effective management of big data, the ability to leverage information and use it to make better transportation and logistics decisions is readily available.

In fact, after accumulating terabytes of data over the years, most companies already have the foundational information right within their own four walls. The challenge lies in extracting this data, determining which of it is (and isn’t) useful, and then turning that information into actionable insights.

What This Means in Logistics

The impact data is having and will continue to have in the logistics industry can’t be overlooked. Companies are realizing the importance of integrating all modes of carriers and all related data into central data repositories for full visibility of everything from rates and tracking information, to complex reporting and score carding. And carrier data is just the first step. The goal is to pool data and allow collaboration among every key stakeholder in a supply chain both external (carriers, suppliers, customers, 3rd party systems) and internal (buyers, accounts payable, logistics, warehouse, procurement, executive team). When this is achieved, a whole new world of supply chain efficiency becomes possible.

To learn specific ways to initiate better data management in your organization, download our white paper “Effectively Managing Big Data in Your Supply Chain.” 

4 Ways to Tame Big Data Overload

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Good data management allows companies to more efficiently and effectively orchestrate their global supply chains. The good news is that leading organizations have found ways to harness their data in creative, intelligent ways and, in return, have gained competitive advantage.

Here are 4 ways that companies are taming their big data and using it to their advantage:

1. Connecting all of their business partners on a single, integrated, cloud-based platform. By connecting all of your business partners, suppliers, customers, and other entities via a single, cloud-based platform that’s accessible 24/7/365, all parties gain extreme efficiencies and improved data management capabilities.

2. Leveraging the data to improve global logistics planning. Look at how incoming data can be used to plan logistics movements (e.g., freight, ordering, carrier relationships, etc.), then consider how your company can be more efficient by leveraging the data housed in its central repository. This, in turn, leads to significant transportation and logistics efficiencies.

3. Gaining real-time supply chain visibility by breaking down information silos. By gaining real-time visibility over the information, and then sharing those insights with all stakeholders (e.g., suppliers, customers, carriers, accounting, logistics, warehousing, etc.), companies can effectively break down any existing information “silos” within their supply chains.

4. Optimize internal processes using regular audits. Don’t just set it and forget it. Continually ask questions like, “Was there a better way we could have moved this freight?” or “Were there other, more cost-effective modes available?” The answers will help you find better ways to do things in the future.

For companies that want to break out of data fatigue mode and begin leveraging their valuable data, the best first step is to take inventory of current, available data and then decide how that information can be parlayed into actionable business intelligence. Then ask yourself what data—from a strategic perspective—will truly help your company achieve its current and future goals.

The Kuebix Team recently released a white paper on effective management of supply chain big data. Download it for free here

A Clear Industry View

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Dan Clark_3274_reduced

Dan Clark, Founder & President, Kuebix

The logistics industry revolution has begun. Technology is empowering supply chain visibility, control and collaboration that was unimaginable just a few years ago. My experience dates back more than two decades when, while working as a supervisor at a major LTL carrier, I spent my days walking the dock and learning everything I could about freight. I quickly worked my way up in the industry and at the age of 28 I was regional director of one of the largest freight divisions in the northeast, and from there became a divisional vice president overseeing 23 terminals.

While at USF group, I helped standardize business process across five different LTL companies and worked with the IT team to develop software applications to automate these processes. Back in 2007, I saw the emergence of cloud technology, knew the impact it would have on logistics, and founded one of the first true cloud-based transportation management systems, Kuebix.

Today, companies are looking more than ever at opportunities in the supply chain to increase efficiencies and bottom line dollars. Over the course of my career, I have met with thousands of companies and almost all of them have shared a common problem – pain points in their shipping process. Many companies outsourced shipping to third party logistics companies (3PLs), which have come to play a huge role in the industry. However, emerging players fueled by technology are challenging their dominance. This kind of disintermediation is not a new phenomenon; we’ve seen the impact on the travel and movie rental industries to name a few. Remember going to Blockbuster on a Saturday night?

Don’t worry, trucking isn’t going anywhere. Until someone invents a device that transports packages through space and time, almost everything will continue to be moved by trucks. However, what is changing is the inefficiency of an old school industry.

I believe that complete supply chain visibility is paramount for business success in this evolving marketplace. In Supply Chain 20/20, I offer my industry knowledge, opinions, insights and predictions as we witness the evolution of logistics. I hope that you will join the conversation by sharing and commenting on my posts. The time is now for the logistics industry to change. Get ready to embrace the change or be left behind!