The logistics business is all about staying on your toes to keep every aspect of the business running.
Managing ins and outs from the warehouse, keeping track of transportation costs, meeting customer expectations, managing employees, preparing accounting records of the business, and much more. As the business grows, managing all these processes gets complex.
This is where the need for transport management software kicks in. A transport management software serves as a vital part of a large supply chain mechanism.
It’s software that helps businesses of all scales plan, modify, execute, and optimize the physical movement of stocks and goods, both in and out of the warehouse. Not only the movement of the goods, but it also ensures the compliance of shipments, track payments, records customer feedback, and maintains proper documentary records.
A transport management software streamlines the shipment procedure by eliminating manual needs at multiple stages of the process. This saves plenty of time and resources that could be deployed to scale the business.
Who needs transport management software?
Businesses whose core activities are shipping, moving, and even receiving huge volumes of goods regularly, should procure themselves a transport management software. Following are the businesses that need transport management software.
- Manufacturers
- Distributors
- Ecommerce companies
- Retail businesses
- Logistics providers
Benefits of a transport management software
Managing logistics data in one place:
A transport management software gathers useful data from all the available data points and groups them logically in a way the managers can later use this information to base their decisions. For every shipment the software will record route information, transportation costs incurred, and other data inputs into one platform, so that later on useful metrics can be run using the data to improve the efficiency of the process.
Reduces freight costs:
A transport management software can compare various logistic routes to find the most cost-efficient route. Analysis of your recorded data the software will find out the best route that brings down freight transportation from shipment to delivery analyzed in terms of speed, fuel cost, and driver pay. Thus you don’t have to sit down with a calculator trying to figure out the most cost-effective route to send your shipments.
The software also provides standardized shipment payment terms. The software is enabled with a centralized billing module, that will automatically bill the shipments to the buyers.
Integrated planning and execution:
A transport management software gels with any of the existing systems that are in place in the company or organization, and are essential to managing the working.
These systems include-
Purchase and order management systems
Warehouse Management systems
Customer Relationship Management
Supplier Relationship Management
This integration will result in better planning and execution of orders.
Enhanced customer experience:
The marketplace is growing competitive every second and this has given the customers luxury to have high expectations. Customers are always looking for fast deliveries, damage-free packages, reliable and real-time tracking details, etc. While companies struggle to provide a real-time order tracking facility, transport management software lets you monitor the cost-effectiveness of the available carrier services and their real-time status. It lets the customers know the time and date of dispatch of their orders and the
expected delivery time.
Warehouse efficiency:
Many organizations found themselves in a spot where the quantity held by them as per their books of accounts and the actual quantities held in the warehouse differ massively. Here human intervention is the culprit. A transport management software has multiple status update criteria through which it maintains accurate inventory details. It also anticipates inventory needs in advance and informs the management about them.
Helps seize better negotiations:
Transport management software proves to be a landmark while comparing freight rates between carriers. It takes almost no time to prepare a detailed comparison report, provided appropriate information is available. Comparable figures generated by the software help you choose the best carriers and suppliers which would result in cost-cutting.
It also lets you know about a certain order quantity or number of transactions that will let you save more on freight.
Minimum paperwork:
The world is going digital and so is the concept of management software. The software doesn’t require any paperwork to be maintained alongside. The software is capable of handling any type of reporting needs of users. This saves a lot of money and time that was traditionally spent on keeping the paperwork up to date.
Automation also checks the manual errors in the process, for example, you can rest assured of any incorrect billing or invoicing errors.
Ease of use:
When handling large volumes of data, automation is much more than just a luxury. It’s a necessity as it saves you from all the complexity and confusion that comes along while managing a large distribution network. A transport management software makes locating, refining, managing, extracting, reviewing, and auditing data a lot easier for you.
You no longer need to search in the huge pile of vouchers for some old bill you wish to retrieve. With transport management software, you can do it with just a few clicks. Pulling out reports from the software is as easy as having your morning coffee.
