Smart Ways to Reduce Transportation Costs

Your company has spent a ton of time and money developing products and hiring the best team to grow the business. The last thing any business needs is to overpay or lose money on fleet management. Or, have a supply chain that is anything less than stellar.

Companies need to be smart in shaping their supply chains and transportation networks to meet customers’ demands in the most efficient and cost-effective—yet innovative—ways possible.

Fleet management as a differentiator

Logistics have undergone profound changes because of the boom in e-commerce and heightened customer demands. The COVID-19 pandemic has only intensified demands.  From that perspective, supply chain and fleet management optimization offer a true competitive edge. The opportunities offered by optimization are potentially enormous: from consolidating shipments, to maximized capacity and utilization of a fleet, as well as using better techniques at loading docks, to securing the resilience of your supply chain with a nearshoring strategy.

Disruptors, like the driver shortage and globalization, are putting immense pressure on shippers. Because of these market forces, many companies are looking to outsource their supply chain and logistics functions. That way, companies can focus on their core business while supply chain professionals handle logistics issues with the right amount of focus and investments on new technology and innovation that provides the competitive advantage they need.

Data centers on wheels

Today, moving goods effectively relies just as much on information as it does on vehicles. Modern trucks essentially are sophisticated data centers on four wheels. They continuously produce information that, properly used, can optimize your supply chain in every respect from on-time performance to fuel efficiency.

Predictive analytics, for example, can alert you that a vehicle is moving 30 m.p.h. in the morning, but 45 m.p.h. in the afternoon. This raises the possibility that if the route were reversed, the driver and vehicle could be used more efficiently and goods delivered in a timelier manner.

Analytics has increasingly become the way to unlock supply chain efficiencies. Better data, used smartly, brings better results.

Analytics are not just about efficiency and optimization; they can be used in ways you may not be considering such as helping to address enduring supply-chain problems like driver shortage. These analytics can identify a mix of issues that signal a driver is at risk of leaving, and the company can address the problems or correct issues before they reach the point of no return. The answer might be something as simple as changing the driver’s route so he can spend more time at home.

Embracing innovative technology

Better data, visibility, and communication are critical to improving supply-chain efficiency, hiring and retaining drivers, reducing costs, and delighting customers. This is where innovative technology such as RyderShare™ comes in.

RyderShare™, is an open digital platform that provides real-time visibility of goods moving across the supply chain. This logistics platform enables the sharing of data with all stakeholders to make decisions and take actions on exceptions in the transit of products. RyderShare™ allows companies to achieve cost savings by reducing redundancies, driving efficiencies, and creating a more predictive supply chain.

As a technology platform, RyderShare™ gives organiza­tions access to data that they’ve never had access to. It also provides a robust solution that distills large volumes of data—both internal and external—into actionable items that supply chain managers can use for good decision-making. It connects all parties – suppliers, manufacturers, carriers, and end users – across the supply chain to enhance communication, provide visibility, and enable collaboration. Furthermore, it gives all stakeholders the ability to work from the same playbook in real-time.

This leads to tangible improvements in customer service and customer sat­isfaction. Other key results that companies experience when using RyderShare™ include cost savings, a 50% efficiency gain in customer service departments (made possible by fewer calls from customers who are looking for their orders), 35% efficiency improvements in labor management at the freight receiving site (thanks to more precise arrival informa­tion), and overall lifts in customer satisfaction.

With the RyderShare™ plat­form in place, companies are well positioned to leverage new opportunities and provide a differentiated value to customers, while also continually improving their logistics and transportation networks.