A freight management software can help companies streamlining their logistics process and activities so that the business runs efficiently and all the departments are as connected as possible, be it for large businesses or small businesses. It is often believed that freight management software is only used by large corporations. But that is not true, both large and small businesses can equally benefit from freight management software.
Manually managing logistics operations can be a tedious task, businesses still managed it somehow when high-end technology was not available at their disposal. But with the help of technological advancements and the availability of various freight management systems in place, it has now become easier for businesses to reduce processing time, manage operations, improve accuracy, and also save costs.
A freight management software not just helps with these, there are also additional functionalities like yard management, reports and dashboards, and financial management. We will discuss about all the ways in which freight management software is helpful for a business and can help them grow in all directions.
When compared to manual freight management, freight management system can help you in the following ways.
- Helps in saving freight costs.
- Lowers administration costs and reduces errors.
- Optimising and integrating shipments.
- Helps in improving service levels and gives a great first impression to customers, clients, and fellow industry people.
- Able to monitor shipments in real-time.
- Helps you in addressing and comparing all the different shipping options and modes, all of this on a common platform.
- Helps you in accessing larger carrier pool.
- It also offers a great carrier capacity in a difficult and closed market.
- Easy communication of shipment status to the customers and other clients.
- It also offers increased visibility into what is actually happening with the transport operations.
- Also, it helps in quickly evaluating carrier performance by offering comparisons with historical reports.
Let us elaborate on some of these key points of comparison
1. Tracking deliveries in real-time: A freight management software can track your fleet in real-time and can easily point out exact locations on GPS-enabled maps and keeps a track of the routes taken and deliveries completed and other essential details. This increases efficiency and that can further improve your productivity. It also helps the drivers by helping them choose better routes and creating better schedules for deliveries.
2. Increase customer satisfaction: Supply chain smoothens really well with the addition of a freight management system. It allows customers to track deliveries and sends accurate delivery updates to you and the customers. It is the perfect link between warehouse management and order management. Consolidating customer orders also becomes possible which can help you find out the best rates for shipping the products to your customers. CRM for logistics can help your business build good relations with your customers and further expands your business.
3. Improving warehouse efficiency and productivity: When you get to track your deliveries in real-time, the information allows you to make accurate forecasts which can further improve the transparency of your supply chain network. A freight management system can actually help you keep your warehouse organised by facilitating inventory management, so you know where the freight is exactly located. The efficiency of the entire process is improved this way. This system can eliminate a lot of unnecessary paperwork and makes the work streamlined and smooth-flowing. ERP logistics systems can be of immense help to a business and it can organise a lot of things that would otherwise be difficult to keep track of manually.
4. Reducing freight expenses and other costs: A freight management software immensely helps you in saving freight costs as it offers different rates for comparison and helps you make considerable savings. When you make good use of all the information presented to you by these software, you will find out many ways of saving not just freight expenses, but many other costs that would otherwise go unnoticed manually.
5. Not just cost, but saves time as well: When entire processes are made to work automatically with minimum time and energy of your employees, your employees can tend to other immediate responsibilities. When the time of the employees is saved, that means the company’s time is being saved and this time can be used to take care of other things.
6. Increasing supply chain efficiency: By using a freight management software, you get a bird’s eye view of all the processes and all the access to real-time information and complete transparency of the functions and processes can prove to be really beneficial for the efficiency of not only the supply chain process but for the entire business. Managers should be making the most of these software as they would help them a lot in optimising time and costs and managers from almost all departments could benefit from this.
7. Offering new delivery capabilities: When the way you deliver and make things reach to your customers and how the processes work, it can open up new avenues for your business. You can easily set up new shipping programs that can increase your efficiency and also save costs. Freight management software really lets you plan and execute all your operational capabilities efficiently. If you have the new ideas flowing and you think you need to integrate them in your processes, it is definitely time to do that then and freight management systems can prove to be useful for that.
Conclusion
In the past few years that freight management systems have been present in business processes, the changes and improvements have been rapid and at a larger scale. Businesses have seen immense growth, it has helped businesses reach their full potential and expand in directions they didn’t know existed. Even if you are a small business and if you feel like freight management software will be even remotely helpful to you in managing your business or making the supply chain smooth, then you are right and you must implement that in your business. Maybe its time to make that small business into a bigger business.
