In the current shipping environment, Shippers and 3PLs need access to real-time, over-the-road (OTR) carrier connectivity to respond quickly to rapidly changing market conditions. According to FreightWaves, “Shipper networks have been put to the test over the past two years and data has allowed for shippers to build resilient supply chains despite the curveballs they have been thrown.”
Responding to Changing Market Conditions
Analyzing your technology’s reliable data creates a single source of truth in your shipping operations that unlocks a host of benefits outside of rating and scheduling shipments to improve your carrier and customer relationships. Let’s look at 5 reasons why carrier connectivity matters.
- Agility: To remain competitive in today’s evolving shipping environment, you must increasingly rely on the way freight information flows across your network. The faster you receive and respond to this information, the more agile your operations become. Modern, automated freight management technology provides the unique ability to connect your entire supply chain, giving you access to dynamic shipping information and allowing you to simplify your entire process. With access to real-time data and business intelligence tools, you can evaluate carrier or lane performance, freight rates, delivery status and more. Carrier connectivity and corresponding data also give you a significant advantage for future negotiations with carriers, as well as improved partner relationships and analysis to help you forecast the likelihood of capacity constraints and interruptions.
- Accuracy: In addition to agility, OTR carrier connections provide real-time, accurate information to help rate, schedule, track, and pull documents, thereby eliminating the potential for manual data entry errors and improving information flow. According to FreightWaves, “It’s a competitive market and if you are working with rates from a year ago, that’s not going to get you much traction today... By having the ability to run RFPs and process them quicker — that’s the flexibility and adaptability you need.” Real-time connectivity gives you the most up-to-date data so you never overpay for your freight and helps you positively impact your bottom line.
- Visibility: As your customer's delivery expectations increase, real-time connections provide end-to-end visibility. Visibility not only includes pick-up, transit, and delivery notifications, but other important data about carrier and/or lane performance. This enables you to analyze past shipment data, including transit time, rates, lane performance, on-time deliveries, and trends by location or time of day, to identify areas of efficiency or where trouble or issues may be slowing your freight. Frequent changes in shipping, especially in First/Final Mile, can impact your profitability with unscheduled and unaccounted for changes in rates, routes, or carrier availability. Real-time carrier connectivity can help you improve delivery times, respond quickly to issues, and satisfy customer demands.
- Cost Savings: With capacity constantly in flux and shipping costs rising across the supply chain, carrier connections provide cost savings in a host of areas. Not only can you rate shop your carriers to drive down costs, having access to real-time OTR carrier data allows you to evaluate your freight bills to identify and rectify variances. Paired with carrier performance data and visibility, you can make better informed decisions about your freight spend and act on performance issues that may be impacting your bottom line. Access to multiple, vetted carriers for all OTR shipping modes, especially hard-to-find First/Final Mile carriers, gives you more selection and opportunity to choose the lowest rate.
- Scalability: As your operations and needs grow, carrier connections provide flexibility and convenience to grow along with you. The ability to adapt and leverage technology to scale your business will prove essential to your success. A technology provider who can give you access to all OTR shipping modes for rating and execution from a single connection saves you time finding carriers in local markets and accessing delivery services that improve your customer’s experience, like first and final mile carriers and the ability to consolidate loads.
Gaining access to real-time, OTR carrier connectivity to respond to changing market conditions is an important step in leveraging technology in your shipping operations. However, it is critical that you utilize that data to unlock all of the benefits your provider has to offer and to ensure you remain competitive in today’s environment.
Our Guarantee
Banyan Technology has 3x more carrier connections than any other provider, including 10,000 assets and drivers in the First/Final Mile OTR shipping mode. We are constantly evolving, launching new products in collaboration with our clients to increase visibility, enhance flexibility, and provide powerful business intelligence tools. To back up the cost savings and benefits of utilizing our LIVE Connect platform, we offer all clients the following guarantee:
“During the first year of our partnership, our clients will enjoy savings in excess of our monthly recurring charges if they fully utilize our platform as intended. If they do not, then they can opt out of our agreement after the first year.”
Contact Banyan Technology today to learn how you can take advantage of carrier connectivity and guaranteed savings from the leading modern technology solution for managing freight.
Let us know what you thought about this blog.
Put your comment Below.