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Efficient freight management is a priority for just about every kind of shipper. Customer expectations are at an all-time high, omnichannel and supply chain visibility are essential practices, and cost-reduction strategies must be implemented to remain competitive.
Shortcomings in any of these areas inevitably lead to lower returns, supply chain disruption, stressed-out employees, and dissatisfied customers. However, an effective freight management strategy helps to reduce costs and improve services across the board. Today, we’re going to talk about the best freight management practices to help you remove complexities and avoid negative cost and service impacts.
Freight Consolidation/Deconsolidation
Effective freight consolidation is susceptible to failure if there is no deconsolidation strategy. To make either practice work, shippers need to understand the process of breaking down pallets and transferring freight from one load to another without disruption. It’s a complicated process best handled by an experienced and fully digitized logistics provider.
A Data-Driven Approach
Today’s supply chain technology helps shippers gain high-level visibility into the entire supply chain. Knowing where your shipment is at any point in the chain enables you to mitigate delays and make critical decisions on the fly, ensuring you have all the information you need to satisfy your stakeholders and maintain a cost-effective process.
2021 Supply Chain Trends To Start Practicing Now
Spot Rates vs. Contract Freight
Most savvy shippers use a combination of spot rates and contract rates to ensure they’re getting the best possible value. However, it’s a delicate balance when declining a contract rate means fines or other repercussions from the carrier. A better strategy might be to use drop shippers and cross-docking where appropriate, eliminate manual processes, and implement a transportation management system (TMS) that connects to all systems to optimize the process further.
Improving the Customer Experience
Customers today are more demanding than ever before. The Amazon effect has touched just about every industry that ships product, forcing shippers to step up and often lose money in the process.
Unfortunately, even when problems are not the shipper’s fault, they bear the brunt of the blame. Word of poor customer service in this area tends to spread quickly online, causing irreparable damage to brands. To boost customer confidence and improve their experience, manual processes must be abandoned. Today, a TMS is essential to ensure reliable freight management and enable an agile business model. A TMS combines all aspects of logistics and freight management into a single platform, leveraging real-time business intelligence to ensure customer satisfaction and efficient operations through every process.
How DTS Helps
DTS World Cargo is an experienced third-party logistics provider, offering end-to-end services that include international freight forwarding, logistics, crating and packing, export documentation, warehousing, and more. Our team works closely with you to ensure your shipments arrive on time and as expected, helping you reduce risk, lower costs, and build a strong brand through consistency and commitment.
We’d love to speak to you about how we can help. Reach out today to learn more about our freight management services and how we can become a valued partner in your success.
