Are you considering automation for freight forwarding? Things you should consider!
According to a McKinsey report, 31% of businesses have fully automated at least one function. From food to air travel, automation has entered almost every industry. Despite this, the shipping industry is still considerably backward when it comes to automation. Freight forwarding is one of the crucial aspects of shipping. Recently, companies have started digitizing their freight forwarding to ease the entire process.
Before jumping further, let’s list down the three main reasons why automation in freight forwarding is the way to go:
- Securing the best freight rates through automated negotiations
- Effortless real-time container tracking and visibility
- Freight consolidation and seamless collaboration among various stakeholders
If you are considering leveraging third-party software for automating the freight forwarding process, these are the things you need to know.
How easy is collaborating with multiple parties involved?
There exist various parties with whom the business needs to deal with during the entire freight forwarding process. These include suppliers, local transporters and warehouses on one end of the rope and shipping lines, buyers, and customs officers on the other.
The system and process to deal with and manage each are different. If you integrate automation, ensure that it eases this complex communication process with the parties involved by meeting their needs.
How well it can minimize the human efforts required
Shippers usually spend hours reviewing carrier rates/day; most of the time, efforts exceed the results. It is here where automation should step in, as it is directly associated with lowering freight spending. Automation leads to improvement in freight management as it streamlines shipment tendering. It also centralizes all the documents involved and reduces the risk of compliance violations.
Hence, before streamlining automation for freight forwarding, look at its efficiency in terms of automating the freight management process and whether it lowers the risks and inefficiencies associated with managing freight, enabling a better, faster way to reduce freight costs.
Is the automation providing visibility?
When you entrust a freight forwarding service to automation, you expect it will provide you with supply chain visibility. It is evident that amidst current disruptions in the supply chain industry, comprehensive shipment visibility and the resultant operational efficiency benefit everyone in the supply chain, whether it is the business or the customers.
Automation in visibility and tracking should do the following:
- Auto-capture every movement of your shipment
- Auto-notify you each time your shipment attains a journey milestone
- Improve customer relationships
- Provide actionable insights through a performance analytics dashboard
- Save time and help drive savings
Be ready with all features you need while channelizing resources towards automating freight forwarding. Then gauge a freight forwarding service provider based on the value that it’ll be able to add.
Final Thoughts
You can start with trying freight forwarding software that best fits your business needs and requirements. It would be best to explore an easy-to-use, customizable, multi-modal logistics solution, which is also highly scalable as and when your business grows. Not to mention, such SaaS solutions are the easiest to deploy, hardly require any training to start using, and are highly intuitive. These affordable solutions make it easier for medium and smaller companies to optimize their supply chain efficiencies cost-effectively.
Feel free to fix a free walkthrough demo of how GoComet’s solution can help you drive double-digit cost savings in your supply chain while eliminating all the pain points you may currently face due to the lack of automation.