| Organizations that have several campuses or facilities | | | | another client, or trying to meet a quota with a |
| have an overhead cost associated with moving | | | | shipping company to maintain a pricing tier. This is |
| inventory and logistical needs. Product and inventory, | | | | starting to change, and the software tools to let this |
| components for products, even office machinery or | | | | change happen are becoming more wide spread. |
| documents, need to be moved from one location to | | | | In addition to automating the quote generation |
| another, and this takes time (tracking down the item | | | | process, these software tools also improve |
| in the first place, making sure nobody else is using it) | | | | transparency in logistical operations; they make for a |
| and money (freight delivery fees from commercial | | | | substantial improvement in tracking package shipment |
| carriers like FedEx, DHL or UPS). | | | | and delivery, while helping costs stay under control. |
| This overhead will never entirely go away, though it | | | | Automated solutions give you better data, and data |
| regularly gets transformed by way of technology. | | | | that's assimilated more rapidly, for example, fully |
| One of the best business models of the last quarter | | | | automated updates, rate changes between carriers, |
| century, from the founding of UPS to eBay, has | | | | automated weekly fuel surcharge changes, etc. New |
| been to trim inefficiencies from this category of | | | | automated tools are actually able to utilize proprietary |
| overhead. | | | | technology to statistically normalize carrier rates and |
| For your own organization, trimming the excess from | | | | various pricing rate bases to determine optimal |
| this overhead is important in any economy, but may | | | | carriers and optimal pricing strategies for companies, |
| be the key to keeping the business open in the | | | | utilizing each company's unique shipping characteristics, |
| current down cycle. For large organizations - very | | | | shipping locations, inbound activity, etc. |
| large ones - the usual method of dealing with this is | | | | There are many TMS software packages available in |
| to get a third party involved to handle updating | | | | the marketplace, and many are effective in different |
| quotes for freight transportation; a freight broker | | | | areas, but do not have carrier relationships, |
| services dozens to hundreds of clients and gets | | | | know-how, or freight volume to determine and |
| regular updates on prices. | | | | coordinate appropriate pricing strategies for shippers. |
| What's changed is that the technology is in place to | | | | Third-party logistics companies (3PL's) have carrier |
| make freight brokerage services as necessary as full | | | | relationships, but rarely have technology available to |
| service travel agents are. More and more of the | | | | execute appropriate and effective strategies - and, |
| freight carrying services are providing their prices in | | | | at present, none have small parcel carrier compliancy |
| formats where they can be collated by internet | | | | available with their websites or technology, i.e. FedEx, |
| search engines. This raw data allows for useful | | | | UPS, USPS, etc. |
| analytics on trends on pricing, delivery times and | | | | Shippers who are able to obtain companies that offer |
| more. | | | | the best fit for their particular shipping needs with an |
| Even so, many companies and organizations work | | | | end to end logistics management software solution |
| out manual "Requests for quotes" and tabulate them | | | | can realize the benefits immediately, and can usually |
| internally to their own metrics, simply because it's | | | | realize a payback scenario within their corporate |
| hard to tell if a broker is working for them, for | | | | guidelines. |