Achieving Enterprise-Wide Visibility in Transportation Operations

Enhancing financial and operational visibility in logistics is crucial for companies to achieve actionable, accurate data and improve overall performance.

### Achieving Enterprise-wide Visibility in the Transportation Process
* 📦 The goal of the supply chain or operations is to create a **fully digital mirror of the transportation process**, considering integrations, technology, resourcing, and BI capabilities when buying and implementing a TMS.
* 🎯 Companies are increasingly focused on enhancing **operational and financial data visibility** in the transportation process, with about **80% of prospect conversations tied to visibility**.
* 📈 Visibility helps to manage costs, improve customer service, and become a **better partner for suppliers and customers**.
* 🛠 Starting with a well-defined process for the **transportation order management cycle** is crucial.
* 🔗 Integrated TMS solutions offer a step in the right direction but often lack **customization and reporting capabilities**.
* 🏆 True enterprise-wide visibility with a TMS, data warehouse, and BI analytics allows companies to **operate strategically** and **gain productivity savings**.
* 🚚 The challenges of achieving enterprise-wide visibility in the transportation process stem from the **complexity of different orders, shipments, touchpoints**, and the need for **continuous investment and training**.

so good afternoon everyone. I'm Jill Clifford, president here at Freight Plus. Freight Plus is a managed transportation service. I'm joined today by Steve abor, CEO of F Plus, and we're super excited to be here. Steve, you want to say a quick hello? Hi everybody, nice to be here. Great. So if you have any questions, you please just pop them in the chat, and we promise we'll get to them. Our discuss for today is centered on enhancing financial and operational visibility in Logistics. You know, the goal of supply chain or operations is to create a fully digital mirror of the transportation process. It's important to consider Integrations, technology, resourcing, and bi capabilities when thinking about buying and implementing a TMS. You know a TMS is not enough. A TMS is really just a piece of a very large puzzle. And so you also, in addition to thinking about considering Integrations, technology, resourcing, and bi capabilities, it's also you're going to need to think about how

to man manually manage distinct processes to ensure that TMS is accurate. Um, there are a lot of software providers out there in 2024, and they're claiming to be, you know, the Magic Bullet. Um, but in our experience, they only get you so far. You know, the goal for companies should be to manage in the direction of actionable, accurate data. Data is super, super important, really hard to do, and logistics software only gets you so far. And so we thought it would be a great topic to discuss today. And so, what's, you know, with that, let's dive in. Um, you know, today. So, Steve, what are the best companies like trying to do as it relates to operational, financial data visibility in the transportation process? Yeah, I, I think, um, you know, I think we really, you know, we've been doing this for about eight years, um, and you know, in a consulting fashion for about 30 years. And I, I think the conversation the last two, three years has really changed, um, you know, as

part of our sales process. You know, one of the things that we're doing is, is kind of documenting, you know, what are people reacting to, what are they talking about, what are they engaging with, what are they asking follow-up questions about. And I think, you know, about 80% of the prospect conversations that we're having at this point are on some level tied back to visibility. That's kind of the broad theme, is folks are looking for more visibility, right? And some of that is, you know, operational processes, and some of that's also financial information, right? So, some of it's literally tracking the truck, and then some of it is trying to tie together, you know, all the things that have to happen through the transport cycle into a story that they can report on. And so, you know, some of the questions I think folks are really starting to engage with is, like, how do we, like, how much does it cost to ship my goods? How is that

know how does that change over time. Um, you know, teams, especially financial teams, are spending a lot of time on, um, GL coding. I mean, you know, whether it's consultants or, or more recently, as in the managed service world, like, we spend a lot of time, um, at different facilities. I think, you know, I think one thing we've seen over the last eight years is, is there's people in these warehouses, and, you know, they have a stack of paper this high, and they, they have their pen, and, and they're, you know, they're categorizing all this information that is, is kind of dropped, um, and they're sending it to a central office. And then, and then some finance person is, is keying that into its system so that they can get, you know, better financial information, like, they're. So, I think, you know, on the finance side, it's like, how, you know, how can we, how can we automate and, and bring visibility to these processes, and, and add a level of precision to them, right? I think everyone in, in 2024 kind of understands that you

know pen and paper is a is a scrappy good way to get it done, but there's there's better ways to solve these problems. Um, you know on the operation side, I I think you know any any operations team is going to have an eye towards continuous Improvement, and I think continuous Improvement like like data and actionable data is is really kind of at the heart of of any good solid continuous improvement process, right? Um, so first we need to Define define the process, we need to measure the process, and then we use that data so that we can we can all align on what the outcomes are, jump in a room or jump on a zoom call, and start to come up with the solution, right? So I think you know operations teams having like actionable accur data that they're confident in that really goes you know throughout the full cycle is is critically important. Um, you know we we uh talked to a prospect last year, uh, it's a fortune 75 company. In the it's a a huge huge operation, kind of a little bit out of who we typically deal

with but one of the larger organizations in the world, and that you know in this case they wanted visibility, meaning tracking information, and really what they were trying to do was leverage the enormous amount of freight. They didn't have good visibility to it, they couldn't track it effectively, right? The teams didn't put a lot of faith into the messages that they were getting, and so they were looking for better solutions in terms of tracking their freight so that they could align snop processes, right? So for them, it's about more throughput at the warehouses, about less labor sitting around, it's about marrying, again, kind of the theme here is marrying actionable data to core processes within their organization. I think another thing is like the sales and customer service. One thing that we hear people talk more and more about is managing their customers, right? So customer service teams, and again, we've talked to some of the

largest companies in the world and they've really struggled to get, you know, actionable tracking information into their customer service team's hands, right? And so what does that mean? That means oftentimes their customers are the ones that are learning that, Hey, where's the freight? Where's the freight? Where's the freight? And so, you know, I think the ability to go from reactive to proactive, in terms of how you're dealing with your customers, is critically important. You know, and that's being able to measure that, have a source of truth on that is critically important. You know, for me, like, by my background before this was Amazon on the retail side and part of, you know, part of who and how we decided to buy from people was how reliable were they, you know, for as a vendor, right? Like, how consistent were their transit times? Did they fill all of their orders? Were those on time? Because all of that, again, is causing increased cost for your business partner.

so I think you know you're not able to solve those problems if you're not able to measure them. Um, so it's really about, you know, starting the process, tracking the process, measuring the process, and then you know, applying some continuous improvement to those processes. And you know, I think what you're going to drive towards is it's going to make you a better partner for your suppliers, better partner for your customers. It's a more profitable organization and a more actionable organization. So just kind of high level, I think what we're seeing more and more in 2024. Yeah, you're right. It's more definitely more around visibility than it is just around what are the market conditions, what's driving freight cost, and where are the good service providers. It's really about, you know, are, you know, these shippers being able to manage, run, and grow their business and getting that data visibility at the order level really across all departments. Um, and I think if you are looking to start with a good

Transportation process. You're going to get a piece of that. And so you know, I think I heard you say it more than once, like it is hard, right? And just having a TMS isn't going to solve the visibility holes, right? And so you know what it is. So if we set the stage, like what do companies need to have in handlon as they start through thinking about right the right data visibility across finance operations, customer service, sales, procurement, shipping teams. Yeah, I think, you know, I think you need a good handle, really, you know, really. It starts with process, I would say. I think we've seen just again, kind of going back to the consulting space, we've seen a number of different companies that have tried to jump into the deep end of the pool with, you know, TMS and technology, and they didn't really have a good solidly defined process, right? There weren't requirements that they were trying to solve as they went out and evaluated, and then more importantly, you know, implemented software, right? So I think

you know, kind of starting with a good process for this order management cycle. And this Transportation order management cycle is critically important. Um, you know, and I think there's a lot of work there, right? It starts with order information. So, you know, not just your customer or the order you place with your supplier, but in this case, like when Freight is ready to ship. So that's really when we're kind of starting this, um, you know, good process and Technology around optimization and load building, around scheduling. Um, you know, being able to store and have access to your contracts, right? And in this case, we're really talking about, you know, contracts in terms of like what are some of the stuff's goofy, it's payment terms, it's liability, it's, um, you know, process for payment, right? But that if you can't access that when something goes wrong, like that's a big problem, right? And then another part of that is like what do you do when something changes, uh, you know, there's

there's uh so many trucking companies in the space, and you know a lot of them are coming in and out of authority. Do you have a good process for managing that? Do you have it? Is it reportable? Is it actionable? Um, you know, I think, you know, continue to go like rating and tendering. Um, something that I thought would be, uh, you know, incredibly easy, and it is, is measuring tender accepts and rejects, right? And I think, you know, part of what you're starting to get into is the complexity around the trucking Supply base, right? You know, I think what we've seen is not all carriers act alike, not all carriers will engage with your Tech technology, and that has Downstream impacts to your performance and your reporting, right? You know, if you want to use a carrier, and the easy thing to do is to say to throw them out, but what if they offer a unique service for a unique, um, you know, a unique location or customer type or

or or it's customer routed right your customer says you have to use them. Um these are all things that if you're driving towards like actionable, uh, you know, actionable accurate data, you have to really consider. Um, you know, a big one in 2024 has been like Risk Management, so I think previously we talked about risk management at, at kind of the global, uh, contract level, but, but you know, are do you have, uh, capabilities and are you capturing that information at the dock level as, as, as Freight is, is on boarded on trucks, right? I mean theft and fraud and, and all of the different combinations of, um, ways that that people are trying to, to, you know, steal and steal Freight essentially or or steal revenue from, from moving trucks, it's gotten incredibly complex. There's a, there's a lot going on, so the ability to, to understand what your process is to report on that process and then when something does go wrong, you know, have documentation that you can provide to the potentially the, the insurance risk provider and say, hey, here's our process.

here's what we did. We checked all these boxes, and here's what happened. You know, I mean, that's pretty powerful stuff for, uh, you know, the tough situation that you're potentially find yourself in, right? Yeah, um, you know, I think the last one is, and this is obviously a big part of this webinar, but you know, track and Trace, you know, we work with, uh, a lot of software providers, um, that are, are Gardner, you know, magic quadrant providers, basically in the TMS and in the visibility space, right? And I think, you know, providing visibility to shipments and Transit, um, is incredibly hard. And I think one of the things that we've found is to just to give you an idea of the level of complexity is, you know, as you approach a A supplier, you know, Trucking base, um, they potentially have, uh, certain providers, software providers that they will work with, providers that they won't work with, um, those provide they work with, those providers in different ways, right, which is sending, you know, different data.

signals to your technology to your reporting um, and you know, if you think about that, so potentially, we have three different providers, and we have, you know, 10 different companies each using each of those three different providers, and they each use it in a different way. And then, oh, by the way, uh, at some point, that technology is going to break an order information, you know, an order ID, uh, a driver's license, like something is going to get chopped, and it's, it's not going to go. So I think, you know, to, to kind of take it back to your original point, it's, it's like it's people, it's process, and Technology because you need to have somebody auditing that technology, ology, uh, they need to be able to figure out what is, you know, what is a signal that I need to go action it, um, and then, you know, and then they need to be consistent in their process of actioning it because you, you will have, um, you, you will have those manual intervention opportunities, and, and when folks jump in.

and they're not consistently, you know, entering the information in the right way. What's going to happen is, again, you're going to have messy data that people don't buy into. So I think, you know, to kind of sum it up, it's really looking holistically at this process and trying to figure out where can I solve this with technology. You know, what happens when it breaks and making sure the team is really trained up and consistent in the way that they're actioning information and entering information so that you have that really clear data set that your teams can use throughout the organization. Yeah, and it's that consistency along with being very, very persistent. You know, I think what I hear you heard you say too is, again, it's the technology. There's a platform to get data visualization. There's lots of Technologies and lots of products but then really having a deep dive at every one of those steps, a real deep dive on what is the technology going to do, what happens when it breaks and even

still when the technology works, there's some deep process with some manual intervention to make sure not just auditing those practices, but even in operationalizing those practices. The technology and the software products aren't going to do it all, they're just not. So again, I think this emphasis, you know, get a handle on kind of all of those steps in that order management cycle from a transportation spec perspective, and then at each step, really understanding, okay, what is the process, what are the steps, how am I supporting this with technology, and then how am I supporting this with people. Um, yeah, no, I think that's ex, that's exactly right, and I think, you know, the more if you're doing this right, uh, you know, at some point, a data engineer, a product manager, a software developer, a data analyst, those are going to be the folks that are, are uh, responsible for, for really, um, you know, driving home those actionable insights. And, you know, I think one of the challenges too is, is those folks aren't familiar as familiar with

picking up and delivering freight and working within the business. So again, you know, you have to be as specific as possible about what to do with all of those kind of conditional if statements in order to get the reporting um as accurate as possible. So that the teams will adopt it and use it and and and it drives good outcomes. Yeah, and that's really where having like that product and Tech subject matter expertise alongside really a solid freight operator, you know, to your point around like what can carriers provide digitally. You know, if I'm building as a product person working alongside Tech. If I'm building tracking and tracing mechanisms and process in automation because I'm using FedEx Freight in the LTL environment, well, that's going to look very differently if I'm using a truckload carrier who has 10 trucks or less, which is 80% of the truckload Market. They're not having the technology and the tools that someone like a FedEx freight is having. And so having those Transportation um folks work in deep

collaboration with product and Tech, and every one of these steps to make sure the tools are operating as they should are really important. Totally sure, and I think those jerks at Amazon have made it so easy as they ship our from, you know, point to point and show us exactly where it is. Uh, right, I get it. It is difficult to understand why, you know, Amazon, you know, FedEx in the parcel space, UPS in the farsal space can have such like granular, uh, information about where stuff is. And then I, you know, if I have one, uh, tube of toothpaste, I know exactly where it is. If I have, you know, 42,000 pounds of toothpaste, somehow no one can tell me where it is. Like I, I empathize how that is bough. Yeah, no. And even when you think about, we were, we were working with a client through a lead time strategy, and you know, the client is giving us four days of lead time when they drop an order versus when it has to pick up, but the outside

Warehouse again. This speaks to auditing and strategy and process around your manual procedures because we're digitally getting four days of lead time to get an order picked up. However, the outside Warehouse will not release that order in their WMS system until noon time the day before of pickup. So, that took that four days of lead time down to four hours. Well, what does that impact? Service and price, right? Um, to right, like who the type of company that that that, you know, those two situations work for different types of companies. Poti, exactly. Why the supplier? Bas, yep. So, let's just say you're a shipper and you haven't started down this path at all. Um, you know, I think like you said based on like 30 years of looking at this and and then eight years in the managed Transportation space, we've seen a lot. Could you just step through and like describe like how companies have evolved and you know, basically let's say they started with nothing. Um, you know, what that looks like and then what we've seen what we

typically, what we're going through these order management process cycles with that prospect. Yeah, totally. I think, you know, for folks that are interested in doing this, whether it's on their own or with a series of partners, because I doubt many folks are just going to go build a TMS, right? So you're going to need partners to kind of figure out some of these solutions. You know, I think a lot of folks will start with nothing, right? So they'll start with kind of no TMS. You know, I think in this world, what we see a lot of is maybe a shared Excel document operating as a TMS. I think that's probably one of the more, you know, that's probably one of the better solutions. Like the baseline solution is, there's just kind of nothing, right? So it's heavily relying on, you know, where's my freight, emails, where's my freight, phone calls.

you know there's there's no integration. There's really no tracking. Um, you know all data goes all day. If you think about kind of that Circle of processes, like all data goes to die at at each one of those processes. So there's there's nothing. Um, there's just there's not a lot going on. And I, you know, I think one of the things that we see, um, and have seen, you know, both as consultants and and again more recently in the in the manag world is is like, you know, if a company will agree to to give you information, they want they want to, you know, they're they're trying to do the right thing, right? They want to do something better. I need help. I want to do something better. Well, yes, it's, you know, can you help me? And okay, can we again, trying to ground ourselves in the reality, trying to ground ourselves in the data, can you share some information with us? And I think one of the challenges that we've seen is it it takes about eight weeks on average from

the time that they say that that yes we need help we want information to here's the information that'll that'll help you know help you help us. And I think it it's not just us that's facing those challenges it's it's really everyone you know kind of everywhere so you're pretty riant on um again just to to kind of summarize. There's there's uh no not a lot of Technology there's there's not a lot of tracking process data is is kind of dying in these silos there's there's not a great opportunity for continuous Improvement and you know and change takes a really long time which like which costs company money yep you got folks living in Excel across all departments you've got Transportation teams you know emailing phone email to find out where Freight is to get back to sales and customer service it's a lot of productivity hours um and then not a lot of actionable data on the back end for sure yeah I think you know kind of the next um the next Evolution that we've

seen over the years has been this kind of like free tmss concept, and so typically, you know, there's kind of two main commercial models for that. So typically, you're looking at, um, you know, the TMS will have some kind of relationship on the back end with, um, you know, with suppliers, whether those are, you know, 3PLs, truckload companies, less than truckload companies, whatever it is, and they'll they'll kind of commercialize that there. Or it'll be, you know, kind of free for one user, $10.99 a month for two users, and you know, kind of a, a like a software model as you grow and scale with that. I think, you know, the pros of this, uh, is it's a good step in the right direction, so you know, you you do have some ability to to capture information, right? I think the cons, um, is typically the functionality pretty restricted. I think what we've seen with these types of softwares is it's like it's, you know, it's good at one thing, so potentially it's a it's a modal.

TMS so it's an LTL TMS more or but you know they they also do a little bit of truckload, and maybe they have a parcel module, but there's there's not a, there's not really a ton of um you know capabilities or functionality functionality I, you know, I think a big one is just like no to low customization, um the goal of these products is to, to kind of distribute them widely, uh make a little bit of money on a lot of different people, and and not touch them to the best of their ability, so I think um you know again every business in our experience is unique, right, they have different, whether it's at a facility level, at a corporate level, um you know at at whatever level you're trying to solve for, their customers, which we talked about earlier, their suppliers, their their modal decisions, the order requirements that they have, um there's there's a lot of things that need to be kind of adjusted and and customized and tinkered with, um and you're really not finding like a lot

of Solutions in this space. Um, I think the last point is that these are the reporting again is pretty limited. Um, so if you know, if you think about how do I apply continuous improvement or how do I get more visibility or how do I price my products more effectively so I can make more money or sell more goods like I don't you're not really getting that rich quality data. Um, you know, I think another thing that we've seen over the years, especially at a place that have multiple facilities is when something's no cost or extremely low cost and the budget impact isn't big, people like people tend to make these decisions almost in a silo. So like one thing that we've seen before is, you know, giving an example, it's like a company has three different facilities. Company A uses TMSA, Company B uses TMSB, and Company C uses TMS C. And so this, the same organization that has three different facilities, not companies, is using three different systems.

ability to kind of aggregate that information to report at a corporate level um to bring consistency to it it's all you know it's all very limited no it really is and then what they're doing is they're putting manual hours on getting data into Excel out of these different systems and then trying to build that actionable data and I think when we see people sit in kind of this free TMS it leads them to the next one which is you know well this this free TMS doesn't do what we needed to let's go buy a real TMS and let's see if we can make that customization happen right totally um and again I I like this is a good sign this is a big step in the right a big step in the right direction for an organization um you know I think again to kind of go back to what we were saying earlier like it's this is going to be very expensive uh this is very expensive to do it's very time consuming

to do um so you really need to think about like what are the outcomes that you're looking for. What is the process that you have? What do you want the system to do? Um, because you know you're getting a lot of functionality. So, you know, I would say in this, uh, so how to think about the non-integrated TMS is, um, you know, this, this is a system that, uh, isn't, you know, isn't connected with Warehouse Systems, isn't connected with, um, you know, potentially financial accounting systems, right? So, this is, this is a tool that is bought, uh, to really support operations and transportation and Logistics teams. So, uh, you know, you have a lot of functionality. Um, it's highly customizable, right? I think we've, you know, we've heard stories of these implementations going on 18 months because they're always kind of tinkering and and changing things. And, you know, again, let's think about that three facility model is facility a, b, and c previously were using three different TMS's and now they have

three different processes. And so it's really, it's really, you know, you kind of have two options. You can either do really long, expensive integrations and implementations, or you can, you know, have a really, really strong change management practice. So, you know, I think it's a big time step in the right direction, but again, like some of the, some of the things that, that some of the problems here is like a lot of that finance and order information is, it lives in those financial accounting and ERP systems. And so the ability to drag that through and add detail and context and color to your orders and to your, you know, the drivers of your financial success is going to be limited. You know, again, I think a big thing too that we've seen is, you know, over the last three, four, five years, um, the, just the, the pace of change of technology in the space. There's been a lot of venture, you know, supply chain became very hot in 2020 with

you know with COVID and the response to CO there was a lot of venture money that poured in. There's been a lot of cool technology that's been built, but I think observationally one of the problems is the technology seems, you know, typically what you see is the technology, you know, solves one part or one process of that, you know, Transportation fulfillment cycle, right? You don't really have a lot of Technology providers just because it is so hard, you know, trying to take on the whole thing. They kind of carve it up and they solve bits and pieces of that. And so, you know, while it is good technology and useful technology, I think keeping up with the pace of change of that technology and also the just the continuous need to be integrating and improving your own technology so that you can drive the outcomes that you want, it's hard, right? Like I think if you think about manufacturers, retailers, Distributors that are trying to solve for these problems.

like this isn't their core business. Their core business is, you know, inbound selling things. Or their core business is making things. And so, you know, just to have, and that becomes a resourcing problem too, right? That's a big-time resourcing problem. If our core business is making widgets and making them better and selling them to a customer base, like if the resources, the technology resources, could go towards selling more widgets or improving TMS, like it's going to go to the widgets every single time. So just pace of change and keeping up with the pace of change, um, and almost the continuous improvement within your own technology is hard and it's really expensive. Yep, I agree. I agree. So I think, um, you know, the next step is, you know, now we're integrated, right? So we have our ERP, um, you know, potentially we have some financial accounting software. Potentially there's some visibility platforms, some contract management platforms, maybe some optimization.

um you know, we're this is, I mean, this is great. I think in our experience, and again as consultants, we were talking to uh everyone from local bakeries to some of the biggest Fortune 500s in the world. I mean, I would I I would venture to say uh, and this don't don't exactly quote me because this is more based on our experience, but if you're, if you're in in level four or level five, you're kind of in the top 95 uh, 90, 98% of, you know, this is we're in Gold Star status at this point. Um, and even in Gold Star status, you know, we've seen there's still a lot of problems. This is hard, right, in this integrated model. You may be getting this digital order that you can map into your TMS, but TMS's, they like loads, they don't like orders. They're not necessarily great at optimization, right, so then there's all these other forget backend digital connections with carriers, but there's some front-end solutioning that needs to

be solved for with people process technology before you even enter into your TMS, regardless of what TMS it is. Whether you built one, whether you well, you've purchased a subscription for one. Um, it's not a place to house orders, it's a place to operate loads. Yeah, and so I think the big gap here is really using the integrated TMS as a reporting platform. You know, it's great for kind of executing that core functionality. You've got a lot of good stuff going on, but I think what we've seen is a lot of companies will try to then pull that information directly out of the TMS, and it's really hard to do. Um, yeah, so this is, you know, I think this is kind of like end state. This is the The Fortune 100, Fortune 500 type of type of experience, right? That I mean, this is really. So I think the big difference between four and five again is going to be your basically your database, your

B database strategy and um your reporting capabilities. So, you know, in stage five, you're really tightly uh integrated with your ERP, with your financial systems, potentially with your warehousing systems. You have, uh, you know, captured and categorized and built audits around, um, you know, all of those core processes that we kind of talked about earlier. Um, you know, the precision in the, in the data allows you to really, you know, really provide some continuous improvement, right? So, I think one thing that we've seen is that companies in this state aren't just executing freight, they're using freight and logistics as, um, you know, as, as a weapon for their company, as a, as a competitive differentiation, right? Um, you know, all of these reports are, are customizable because, again, they're, they're the reporting structure is being driven not from the TMS, but from, you know, cloud, cloud services, uh, data engineers, data analysts, software developers, right? So, I think the, the custom, the customization around what you're looking to do, um, is like, is, is miles and miles and miles.

away from kind of that reporting out of the TMS. Yeah, yeah, and I think if we think about it, I, you know, one of the questions is, you know, across departments, what do you commonly see? And so I think there's a version of this, like what we're calling five steps of visibility where we see, you know, no TMS working in Excel, where we see maybe you have a TMS, it's a free one, or you're using a standalone TMS solution. There's no availability to get good data out of it and good actionable data. Um, and so I think when you look at like a true integrated with bi analytics and you think about that across your departments, you know, imagine where, uh, Finance teams are now armed with live acrs, uh, they have the ability to build a forecast and to manage a budget, uh, GL coding, all of that. But also, imagine a place where in a live environment, once that order is in and booked, you from a corporate treasury. So just maybe you're billing your customers for Freight and maybe it's not what

you're paying for freight. Um, you know, managing all of that financial part of it is really where you can get those teams. We see a lot of FP&A, a lot of controllers, a lot of AP folks living in exportable data from an ERP, a WMS, a TMS, and they're managing all of that in Excel, and then they're trying to reconsume it into their native accounting systems. And so again, if you're doing it best in class, you now have the ability with TMS data warehouse, BI analytics to customize that solution so it's automated. Um, and if you think about say sales and customer service teams, you know, really giving them that data visibility to where those orders are, oh wait, it ships short, why? Um, even, you know, we've seen customer service teams spending 35 to 45% of their time chasing transportation issues. We've seen customer service and sales team lose sales because they don't know that the order was cut and ship short until seven days later when it delivers. Imagine

knowing that at book and you now have seven days to replenish or resell or reservice that customer. You're now gaining additional sales. Um, you know shipping sites spending 19 to 22 steps on average getting orders out of an ERP, a billing generated and freight tendered to a carrier. Um, and then you know usually the transportation and supply chain team are left with these tasks. And even if they understand what the strategy should be, what the process looks like, their hands are tied behind their backs because they don't have the tools. And so you often see a lot of really smart strategic thinking people in these departments who are spending hours manipulating data. Um, and so as you think about those productivity savings that you're going to grab really working in a best-class environment. I think, you know, again high level across departments that's commonly what we see. And by doing it with a best practice, you're G to pull all of those hours and the folks that you're hiring to do really smart

strategic work and grow your business and run and operate your business. Are GNA actually have the bandwidth to do some of that work? Yeah, I think that's exactly right. And I mean, I think, you know, it's a challenge that we face and everyone on the call faces is like hiring is so difficult today. It's tough. Yeah, it's just, it's tough to find people. So, you know, that ability to make the work more strategic, to make it more impactful, to, you know, like that's what keeps folks in, you know, in the role and with your company. And then you can kind of compound all of the value that they're, you know, learning and driving, and, you know, over a long period of time. So it's really important. Yeah, you don't want to hire good people to do bad work. Yeah, exactly, especially if they're doing manual work. You know, I think what we see a lot of times is, there's a lot of effort, there's a lot of time.

spent on these things, and then the results are generally inaccurate. So it's like a lot of investment for, you know, kind of suboptimal results. Yeah, yeah. And I think it's important as you're looking. So I think, you know, again, you're looking at your order management cycle, transportation process. And if you're still with us, you know, this is that deep dive work that we've done as consultants for over 30 years that we live in in our managed transportation space. Like it's really important if this is of interest to you and visibility is something that your company is talking about for 2024, you know, please reach out to us. Because at no cost to you, we can step through this order management transportation process, and we can show you kind of where you are across departments, how you're managing sales orders, purchase orders, transfer orders across all these departments, and identify if there are any gaps and identify really where strategically working towards like a best practice around financial and operational order.

visibility um might make some sense, and so please, please reach out to us. We're happy, again, to step through that with you, um, because again, I, again, I think, I go back, Steve, you've said it more than once, this is hard, and if you are in the manufacturing game and the retail game and the distributor game, um, there often times this isn't where you want to be resourcing your people or your money. Um, you're, you're resourcing to build and grow your business, and this is where we as managed Transportation providers have resourced, and you know, we can help you look, look through the discovery of that order management process. Let me just look and see if there's any more questions, and if not, we can wrap. Just a kind of a standard question is, you know, what about the transportation process makes it challenging to achieve enterprise-wide visibility, um. I go ahead, I think it's the same, it's of the theme of, uh, there's a lot of, uh, there's a lot of different orders, there's a lot of different shipments, uh.

there's a lot of different things that have to go right, and uh, as we all know, there's a lot of different things that definitely go wrong all day. And so, having, you know, stringing that together over, you know, five, 10, 20, maybe 100 orders, and then having, um, you know, having all of those touch points documented, and then having, uh, again, like it's not just having a, a, a free TMS or something that's pretty easy to use, it's, it's really investing the time and energy into something, um, you know, with a lot of different people involved, right? Anytime that you have a big team involvement, it becomes, it becomes harder. So, I think it's, it's, you know, just all the different parties and complexity at play and investment that needs to be to be made and training that needs to be, uh, also continuously improved so that you can get the outcomes that you want in order to make the decisions that you need for your business to grow and be profitable, um, you know, and be the type

of company that you want to be. Yeah, yeah, makes sense. Well, thanks for the time today. Uh, and again, reach out if you have any questions. We are going to post this webinar on LinkedIn Live, um, so you can grab the materials there if you need it. Any questions for Steve and I, feel free to reach out to us on our LinkedIn Pages. You can also email us at saorfree.io and J Clifford at free.io.

Enhancing Financial and Operational Visibility in Logistics

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FreightPlus (formerly Aborn & Co.) creates a fully-managed transportation solution to help organizations gain cost control over their logistic programs. As celebrate 30th years as a market leader in supply chain and logistics our best practices have ensured decades of client success. Our dedicated team is an extension of your staff, committed to the same values and principles we were founded on in 1988.

FreightPlus

Freight Plus, a managed transportation service, discusses the increasing importance of visibility in the transportation process, with 80% of prospect conversations now focused on this topic.

Companies are striving to gain more visibility into operational and financial data, aiming to automate processes and improve precision.

The focus is on tracking goods, leveraging freight visibility, and managing customer service to align actionable data with core processes.

Improving Customer Service Through Enhanced Tracking and Data Visibility

Companies struggle with providing actionable tracking information to their customer service teams, leading to reactive instead of proactive customer service.

The key to solving these problems lies in measuring, tracking, and continuously improving the transportation order management cycle.

A good solidly defined process, technology optimization, load building, scheduling, and contract management are essential for effective management of the trucking supply base.

Improving Freight Management Through Technology and Process Optimization

Risk management at the dock level is crucial for combating theft and fraud in freight transportation.

Providing visibility to shipments and transit is challenging due to the complexity of working with multiple software providers, requiring a holistic approach to the process.

It is essential to have a consistent and well-trained team for entering information to ensure a clear and reliable data set for the organization.

Improving Freight Operations Through Collaboration and Technology

Effective reporting requires specific and accurate data to drive positive outcomes and team adoption.

Collaboration between transportation experts, product, and tech teams is crucial for developing tailored tracking and tracing tools for different types of carriers.

Many companies start with no TMS, relying heavily on manual processes, but are increasingly open to seeking better solutions and partnerships for improvement.

The Limitations of Free Transportation Management Systems (TMS)

Free TMS systems offer limited functionality and customization, leading to the need for additional, more expensive TMS solutions.

These systems lack the ability to provide rich, quality data for decision-making and are unable to effectively aggregate information across multiple facilities.

As a result, companies end up investing significant time and money in transitioning to more comprehensive TMS options.

Challenges of Non-Integrated Transportation Management Systems

Non-integrated TMSs lack connections with warehouse and financial systems, leading to lengthy and expensive implementations.

The pace of technology change in the transportation industry makes it challenging to keep up with continuous improvement and integration, which is costly.

Even with an integrated model, TMSs still face difficulties in mapping digital orders and optimizing loads, adding further complexity to the transportation management process.

Using an integrated TMS goes beyond just housing orders, as it is a place to operate loads effectively.

The difference between stages four and five lies in the database strategy, reporting capabilities, and tight integration with other systems.

Companies in stage five not only execute freight but also use it as a competitive advantage, with customizable reports driven by cloud services and data analysts.

The integrated TMS provides data visibility and automation, empowering finance, sales, customer service teams, and the transportation and supply chain team to operate more efficiently.

Improving Business Strategy and Operations

GNA faces challenges in hiring and retaining talent for strategic work, impacting the company's growth.

The company emphasizes the importance of strategic work and offers to help with order management and transportation processes.

The complexity of the transportation process and the need for investment and training make it challenging to achieve enterprise-wide visibility.