When logistics and operations departments experience things like layoffs, hiring freezes, and budget cuts, they typically have to rely on their carriers more heavily. When this happens, carriers are able to take on more business at more expensive rates because they know that their client no longer has the manpower required to monitor all of its shipping expenses. The carrier isn’t the only party to blame for the rise in shipping costs that typically occurs after layoffs, however; both client and carrier naturally tend to go with more expensive services even though they may not be needed once a company is unable to hold either party accountable for the costs that are occurring, and unable to ensure mutual compliance with shipping guidelines.
One way to make sure that all shipping costs continue to be monitored and the right parties held accountable for noncompliance with your company’s established routing guide is to use an active routing guide. If you have not yet made the initial investment required to put this technology in place, below are some reasons you might want to go ahead and make the leap.
Active Routing Guide Benefits
The elimination of paper. An active routing guide will allow you to do away with paper routing guides and create summaries that are not only easy to interpret, but that will completely eliminate the need for you to manually create and print extensive reports for the purpose of analysis.Real-time alerts. You can make cost-saving decisions throughout the shipping process when you are able to receive real-time data regarding the ongoing status of each shipment in your supply chain, and also, to hold the appropriate parties accountable for routing guide noncompliance.
Work with live numbers—not just projections. When you have the ability to track and view every shipment in your supply chain from anywhere in the world at any given moment, you can work with live numbers rather than data based more on past performance or shipping history.
Better rates and service levels. When you can show your carrier exactly how you intend to aggregate volume to give them more business, you have more leverage at the rate negotiating table. You can also make a great case for better service levels when you are able to show your carriers precisely where there needs to be improvement.
Self-reliance. You will no longer have to rely on your carrier for information regarding your own supply chain, which means that your decisions related to things like mode conversion and package consolidation truly your own, and therefore, less costly.
If you’re concerned that implementing an active routing guide may serve to eliminate jobs by completing tasks that may once have been handled by personnel, you should keep in mind that it may also be able to help you save jobs down the line precisely because it has the potential to help you keep shipping costs from rising unnecessarily. The economy may be experiencing an upturn, but it’s a slow upturn, and the threat of future layoffs is, unfortunately, still a reality, as are hiring freezes, budget cuts, and the operational deficiencies they can create. Nine times out of ten, implementing an active routing guide under such circumstances is going to help much more than it hurts.
To find out how BridgeNet can help your company implement an active routing guide in 2011, send an e-mail to: sales@bridgenetsolutions.com, or call 312-492-7500 and ask to speak with a sales representative.
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