The
easiest way to meet your transport budget for 2013 is to eliminate overspending
and make sure you are not incurring unnecessary freight expenses. The most
common causes of overspending? Shipping goods with non-contracted carriers
shipping with the wrong
carrier or using
unauthorized service
levels. How
does this happen? It could be your vendors, your clients or even your own
staff. Not on purpose but because they do not have the right information.
Here
are 3 Routing Guide strategies that will help you save money this year
by ensuring
compliance and gaining better
control over your shipping process and costs.
Manage inbound vendor
routing compliance
If
suppliers operate under INCO terms that require them to make use of your
contracted carriers for inbound shipments, then you need to manage routing
compliance. You have spent a lot of time and effort in setting up the most cost
efficient carrier network. A supplier that does not ship its goods with your
designated carriers will cost you money.
The
solution to manage routing compliance is to implement a Routing Guide.
Commonly, these are PDF based versions that are emailed out to vendors across
the globe or placed on corporate websites. Any changes require reworking the
document and emailing the updated PDF or Excel sheet to all vendors. This is a labor
intensive
process and you run the risk of your suppliers having outdated information. By
creating and maintaining your Routing Guide on-line you ensure all your suppliers have access
to the most up-to-date shipping instructions all the time. Any changes or
updates are made centrally and on-line eliminating the need to re-distribute de
Routing Guide after each update. Providing your suppliers a login
to
the Routing Guide also eliminates the need to maintain email addresses.
Implementing online Routing Guide software is a strategy that ensures the highest vendor routing compliance at a low cost. It will avoid you having to account for overspending expenses on your budget due to incorrect carrier usage.
Up to date sales
managers cost less
Many sales managers are confronted with not knowing the shipment costs or other vital transport details during a sale to a potential client. Not having up to date shipping cost information can cost them a sale. Or it can cut into your profit margin by selling with too low a transportation cost as part of the deal.
An
online Routing Guide tool can help your sales people have access to all
relevant shipping information at all times. Information like who is the
carrier, shipping frequencies and costs can all be at their fingertips via an
up-to-date online Routing Guide. No more need to make an urgent phone call to
the shipping department during a sale. Via your website they can have access to
the on-line
Routing
Guide giving them all relevant information.
Increasing
your sales
force's selling
success by implementing an on-line Routing Guide saves you money.
Guide customer return
flows (B2B and B2C)
Customer
returns are a high cost factor
in
today’s transport environment. Uncontrolled returns by business clients and end
users are a nightmare for every logistics operation.
Controlling
your customer return flows is one of the ways to keep the costs in check. This
means that the people who return goods need to have a clear and up to date
return instructions available at all times: how to package returns, what
documentation to provide, who to contact but most importantly, which carrier to
use based on their location. A Routing Guide solution can help you with this.
By providing your customers access to a Routing Guide you allow them to find
the correct carrier for their returns. But you can also give them access to the
correct instruction and documentation. You could even rebrand the Routing Guide to make it
look like part of your website and customer service environment.
You can
create an efficient and cost effective returns network but a Routing Guide will
ensure your customers use it as intended.
Implementing
an on-line
Routing
Guide is easy. And remember the last time when an inbound shipment was sent
using an outbound
account? Or when a low priority shipment was sent using an express
service
level? And
remember what the cost was? Even avoiding one of those errors will often
already pay for a Routing Guide. If you are interested in learning more about
the savings possibilities a Routing Guide can offer you, contact us at info@xzisu.com
Xzisu is a global transport
& logistics tender/RFP management specialist. With a proven track record of
service excellence Xzisu uses its industry knowledge, combined with technology
to manage complex tender processes .
Follow our company on LinkedIn
No comments:
Post a Comment