Global manufacturing and supply chain processes have gone through a major shift in such a way that the number of manufacturers and businesses in need of shipping has grown beyond shippers’ maximum threshold. This is where Third-Party Logistics Service Providers (3PLs) come in and offer solutions that help gain efficiency in transportation management.
If your business is at a point of considering outsourcing a 3PL provider or rather, a transportation management provider, see how 3PL can deliver significant benefits in the following 8 ways:
Saving Money
Money is at the centre of your business. Having goals and a mission statement is important but a business cannot operate without an income stream, and some of this money should be spent carefully. Outsourcing a transportation management provider achieves this and reduces in-house expenses on shipping processes.
Bargaining Power
A lot of carriers refuse to pay attention to entities that aren’t capable of bringing in the most business. Some even go as far as ending contracts with smaller businesses they deem don’t bring in enough capital. A transportation management provider on the other hand, works with thousands of smaller businesses, organizations and co-ops. This presents 3PLs the same bargaining power than the largest companies such as Amazon or Walmart.
Flexibility in Business Processes
When outsourcing your shipping processes to a transportation management provider, you achieve an increased flexibility in supervising your daily operations. You have a duty to complete manufacturing processes and a responsibility to fulfill orders. These operations depend on the satisfaction of your customers. You need to know that you have a viable, expert-level solution when an issue arises and a customer suffers. Having flexibility allows you to take care of potential issues and enables you to adjust your business output at your own pace.
Transparency
Modern civilization needs business transparency, especially with continuing growth and hype of government tax breaks and assistance remaining a primary voter concern. 3PLs have processes in place to handle this concern as many of their operations have no bearing on or possess the potential to disrupt proprietary processes or information of your business, so huge amounts of information about their activities can be released to the public. This completely eliminates the risk to your business while showing you have nothing to hide, except your innovative formula for a new, eco-friendly cleaning product or piece of technology.
Employee Satisfaction
A lot have drawn conclusions around the idea of outsourcing and suggest it leads to employee frustration, a loss of jobs and distrust among employees. However, outsourcing a process like transportation to a transportation management provider does not cause job loss. Instead, it gives your employees a chance to focus on the processes and duties that were defined in their basic job description. An employee might not appreciate additional tasks to their duties and will probably grow unhappy with their employers. Eliminating the need to expand duties to include shipping processes and outsourcing will help improve employee morale.
Analysis Of Big Data
Transportation management providers control how quickly a product gets to your customers because they have a strong amount of leverage against shipping carriers. This takes place through the analysis of big data, collected via transportation management systems, identification of inefficiencies in the order fulfillment processes, and the integration of the TMS into other logistics systems and databases. A transportation management provider exists as an implementation of a new ERP system you may have already completed.
Access To Technology
Technology changes and evolves constantly and rapidly. Therefore, it’s important to use software that will keep you on the same level as your competitors. Implementing new product updates can cost quite a lot of money and sometimes these updates don’t fit your needs. You could try and find the right development team or buy an off the shelf TMS that doesn’t come with services as well but at the end of it all, you still are challenged to find unique talent, which takes time, training and more money. Transportation management providers have developers who continuously improve technology and as a shipper, you benefit years of experience that go hand in hand with technological expertise who are finding innovative solutions to the biggest issues.
Focus On The Core Of The Business
When defining your business, you want to focus on the products or services that you offer, not how these get to your customers. Shipping comes with unwanted business process and the maintaining of relationships that you shouldn’t have to concern yourself with. Your business should instead focus on developing new products or improving existing products to increase your own return on investment. Outsourcing your shipping needs allows you to restore your focus and gives you time and energy to focus on your products.
See the 5 Ways To Reduce Risk In Transport Management!
Source: Cerasis