“A company’s transportation department is a critical component in today’s synchronized supply chain”, said Manugistics Senior Vice President of Global Marketing and Solutions Management Lori Mitchell-Keller. “Companies, such as those in the retail and consumer goods industries, that implement comprehensive, Web-based Transportation Management and Logistics solutions, can better ensure that a product is on the shelf and not stuck in transit.”
Aberdeen Group Beth Enslow discussed best practices from the firms report New Strategies for Transportation Management: How Transportation Management Practices Are Changing to Meet Today’s Market Pressures. The report validates that such market pressures as increased internal and external service and information demands, increasing complexity and lengthening supply chain, freight capacity and rising freight costs and accessorial charges are forcing transportation executives to rethink how they deliver value to the enterprise, plan transportation loads and measure performance.
“Best-in-class companies now treat transportation management as a critical platform for information sharing and activity synchronization within the company and across suppliers and customers”, said Aberdeen Group’s Vice President Enterprise Research Beth Enslow. “Over the next 18 months, companies plan to extend their transportation processes at a very rapid rate with a new focus on the transport department as an information and synchronization hub.”
“When the transportation department is able to monitor and disseminate critical logistics information, it can help a company have better visibility into their supply chain and be more proactive when there are unexpected surges in demand or disruptions in the supply chain. This is especially true for retailers and consumer goods companies during high-peak sales cycles like the back-to-school and holiday shopping seasons”, continued Mitchell-Keller.
“We have seen the need for more information in the logistics activities of companies of all sizes”, said Paul McCreary, Executive Vice President of Business Solutions for Order Logistics, Inc. “The problems these companies face is gathering and managing data from a variety of different systems, both internal and external”, said McCreary. “Our focus has been on easy to implement and execute tools that capture this data and place information in an easy to read format on the desktops of people assigned to do the work. The transportation we grew up with will never be the same and the winners will be the companies that manage and share their information better than the others.”