What’s Critical in the Post-Pandemic World of Logistics
Like most people in this post COVID-19 world, decision makers at manufacturing & distribution companies, and those who work in managing the supply chain or logistics of their company, are all wondering how to adapt to these times. Businesses must come up with a plan to develop sustainable operating measures and optimize processes in order to survive for the longer haul.
Better, Faster and Remote
Previously, decision makers in the distribution industries may have lacked the urgency to optimize internal processes. Companies may have pushed back against digital disruption because of a lack of expertise, or a willful re-prioritization of resources.
Now, more than ever, it is also the time to reprioritize and leave behind un-innovative practices. The pandemic has shown us how we are capable of managing our business even in a bathrobe from the comfort of our home. In a post pandemic world we might have to evolve a little more. The same decision makers in the manufacturing and distribution companies must change their attitude towards management and instead, shift their resources towards building a better supply chain that is robust, remotely-controllable and flexible.
Improve the processes, how? By being able to answer these few questions, that matter every day, better:
- What classes of commodities are moving at the regular port routes?
- Why are the freight rates changing every day?
- What type of items is being loaded and unloaded at the ports that are influencing the prices of freight movement?
- What is your current team utilization within your transportation department?
- What is your lag time during dispatching your goods? Can you explain why the lag is too high or too low?
- Why is there a delay in your transport bill payment and how much has it affected your relationships with your carriers? Do you have the necessary means to improve this delay?
- Which areas of your supply chain are the biggest contributors to your revenue stream? Can you dynamically measure this?
This means an incredible amount of focus should be paid to the quality of data collection and the data itself, that influences your supply chain decisions.
The companies that will survive and prevail are the ones that seek out the right people and tools for faster and more accurate decision making resulting in improved response times.
Tools for the Trade
As the captain of your ship, you need to buy the right binoculars to be able to spot the tiniest iceberg that might wreck your Titanic. Therefore, decision makers like you, must improve their organization’s operational visibility. You must optimize processes to make faster decisions. You must become more data centric and streamline the data to react faster to changes and predict cost and risk better.
Let’s take a lesson from the California Gold Rush around 1850. The people who made ax picks and hammers made a fortune, much more than the actual diggers themselves. This stands true for logistics up to a certain extent. For logistics, your overall impact may be diluted if you do not participate in the ‘digging’ yourself. We, at Loop, believe that no-one can design the tools better than the do-er.
And hence, Loop Freight operates as a logistics company moving your goods but also builds the digital tools necessary for you to make faster, reliable decisions regarding your supply chain.
With the RateKey app from Loop Freight, you are able to reasonably predict the short term freight rates and how it might impact your cost on your shipment.As a result, you could also relatively predict your monthly spend. Our supply chain team will look up your existing routes and offer to redesign your supply chain to enable cost-cutting, reduce lag times and more utilization.
Loop Freight’s shipper platform will clearly show you when shipments are unloaded, so that you are able to better plan for next day’s trips. We work with a national chain of vetted truckers along all major routes, which means you get reliable trucks fast. You get dedicated Loop Freight transport managers managing your shipments and updating you every step of the way. All this from one single dashboard.
Action Items
All that’s missing is a link up from one of our team members at Loop Freight to reach out to you.
If you are able to constantly think of such matters and raise these questions yourself, you are already on the right track.
You could always begin with a simple phone call with our ops team to move your goods on a trial basis. Once you see your shipments live on our dashboard — you can assess the impact of our data-driven efforts, by yourself!
Cheers!
