As time is of value in logistics industry, according to Manish Bindal, CEO, Trans Cargo, having an efficient rate management system can reduce your time for inquiry generation from a few minutes to a few seconds, leading to cost and time savings.
While the business landscape has been undergoing digital transformation, logistics sector has been a late entrant. Accelerating e-Commerce along with increased customer expectations has made participation of logistics critical. Freight forwarding business needs to adapt to the change to face the challenges of international trade. In India, the logistics sector is expected to hit a value of US$160 billion by 2025.
The pandemic gave pace to the need for digital transformation. New-age technologies such as IoT, Big Data, automation, and streamlining workflows became critical to ensure steady supplies during ongoing COVID-19. Digitalisation in the logistics industry is a necessity, not a choice.
Digital future
The world has become digital in all aspects and the pandemic has succeeded in accentuating this trend. Businesses switched to remote working while consumers switched to online shopping. There is a need for digital solutions to cope with the increasing demand and growing customer expectations.
Since logistics may have stakeholders in different countries within the supply value chain, digital transformation is vital. To improve visibility and add to the ease of operations, shipping processes and back-office activities needed to be digitized. Operational efficiency will be enhanced by the use of real-time freight rates, digital bills of lading and automation of processes. Most logistics players have switched to efficient and automated systems.
Automation for efficiency
To guarantee on-time delivery, every step in the workflow has to be timed perfectly. Complex operations in the shipping supply chain can be managed only by automation. Digitizing back-office processes such as email, faxes, calls to check freight rates can all be automated. Having an efficient rate management system can reduce one’s time for inquiry generation from a few minutes to a few seconds leading to cost and time savings thus offering an improved customer experience.
Real-Time tracking
Apart from making operations more efficient, digital transformation allows quick reactions to disruption by providing real-time updates. Real-time tracking helps to identify the possibility of delays and plan accurate ETAs, which can be intimated to customers. This helps to set the customer expectation correctly and offer them a great experience. Another advantage is dynamic routing which helps to optimize routes when a sudden disruption is identified. This helps to prevent delays.
Gaining through data-based insights
Digitalisation enables companies not only to streamline data but also obtain data-based insights that can improve efficiencies. Interoperability between stake stakeholders opens the door to exchange of data between various parties offering new information. This can improve efficiencies tremendously. This is an expected trend in the future and will come with huge benefits to all the stakeholders concerned.
Internet of Things
Using Internet of Things (IoT) devices at nodal points across the value chain will help to provide real-time tracking, measure temperature and humidity to adhere to quality standards of sensitive goods and proactively identify any disruptions in the shipping process. These devices collect information and transmit them to the cloud. 4G LTE-based sensors offer quick data transmission with decreased data latency offering real-time actionable insights.
Blockchain technology
Blockchain offers companies a fool-proof end to end solution for more efficient operations. It is a decentralized public ledger system that cannot be tampered with. In the logistics industry, this will offer more visibility and help remove middlemen in the supply chain. It would bring efficiency to back-office operations. Smart contracts would improve transparency across the value chain. In combination with Big Data and AI blockchain is expected to be a game changer in the freight forwarding business.
Data analytics
Storing data is one thing but making use of it is another. To extract the maximum out of data, it is important to digitize it so that it can be retrieved and used easily. Data analytics tools help to analyze the humongous volumes of available data to extract meaningful insights that can be actioned. This would help in improving workflows and streamline operations.
Optimizing back office Operations
The logistics industry deals with volumes of paper leading to inefficient back office operations and lack of visibility. The digitization of the back office will offer easy access to data and improve the efficiency of operations thereby optimizing time and costs.
Providing real-time quotes
Digitization of the back-office ensures that information can be accessed by team members across the world. In the logistics industry, this means saving considerable amount of time and cost. Automation of processes such as sending and receiving invoices and bills of lading will make the system paperless and efficient. This will free up human resources to handle more critical tasks, digital solutions can help obtain the best rates real-time which can improve the operational efficiency by reducing hours to a matter of seconds.
Growing expectations of customers
e-Commerce biggies such as Amazon have skyrocketed the expectations of customers. Using a real-time tracking system to gain visibility across the supply chain will allow companies to offer a better customer experience. Growing customer expectations have raised the bar and logistics providers have to up their game to beat the competition. Digitization of the logistics sector is imperative for businesses to stay competitive in the market. Summing up, the freight forwarding business is in an exciting space right now. The need for efficient logistics is only bound to accelerate in the days to come.
