Freight capacity constraints, rising costs, increasing thirst for information transforming service providers into synchronization hubs, Aberdeen reports
Boston — August 17, 2005 — A new set of transportation best practices is emerging to meet today's realities of freight capacity constraints, rising transportation costs and an increasing thirst for transportation information from other corporate departments and customers, according to a new best practices report on domestic transportation management operations from business advisory firm Aberdeen Group.
"The best transportation organizations are transforming themselves from being the last step in a sequential, waterfall fulfillment process to being an information and activity synchronization hub for their enterprises and their suppliers and customers," said Beth Enslow, Aberdeen's vice president of enterprise research and the report's author. "This helps their companies cut cycle times, reduce total delivered costs, improve customer trust and satisfaction, and, in some cases, even drive increased revenue."
To identify today's success strategies, Aberdeen Group researched the domestic transportation practices of a variety of large and midsize companies. Seven best practice leaders were selected to illustrate these success strategies and are profiled in the report, "Best Practices in Transportation Management," which is available for free download online at the Aberdeen Web site. Each case study examines a company's business challenge, transportation strategy, technology deployment, process and organizational enhancements, lessons learned and business results.
Well-established best practices — such as centralizing the transportation management organization, automating order consolidation, taking greater control of inbound freight and self-invoicing — continue to drive value for companies.
However, three new best practices have emerged: carrier collaboration, universal information access and 360-degree scorecarding. The report contains a transportation best practice checklist that a company can use to verify that its transportation roadmap reflects current best practices.
"Our investigation found that leading transportation organizations are not standing still but are implementing aggressive continuous improvement programs," Enslow added. "This is enabling them to drive increased value from transportation activities and information for their companies, while keeping freight cost and capacity issues in check."
Interested readers can register to receive a free copy of the report at http://www.aberdeen.com/summary/report/benchmark/RA_BPTransMgmt_BE.asp.
Additional Articles of Interest
— For more information on transportation management systems, see the article "The Analyst Corner: Fulfillment & Logistics" in the October/November 2004 issue of Supply & Demand Chain Executive.
— For more information on the global supply chain, with a focus on security issues, see "Building the Secure Supply Chain," the Net Best Thing article in the June/July 2003 issue of iSource Business (now Supply & Demand Chain Executive).
— Benchmarking is one way to improve your supply chain's competitive advantage. For easy guidelines that will help overcome any challenges benchmarking may present, read "Standardizing Benchmarking to Achieve Results."
Boston — August 17, 2005 — A new set of transportation best practices is emerging to meet today's realities of freight capacity constraints, rising transportation costs and an increasing thirst for transportation information from other corporate departments and customers, according to a new best practices report on domestic transportation management operations from business advisory firm Aberdeen Group.
"The best transportation organizations are transforming themselves from being the last step in a sequential, waterfall fulfillment process to being an information and activity synchronization hub for their enterprises and their suppliers and customers," said Beth Enslow, Aberdeen's vice president of enterprise research and the report's author. "This helps their companies cut cycle times, reduce total delivered costs, improve customer trust and satisfaction, and, in some cases, even drive increased revenue."
To identify today's success strategies, Aberdeen Group researched the domestic transportation practices of a variety of large and midsize companies. Seven best practice leaders were selected to illustrate these success strategies and are profiled in the report, "Best Practices in Transportation Management," which is available for free download online at the Aberdeen Web site. Each case study examines a company's business challenge, transportation strategy, technology deployment, process and organizational enhancements, lessons learned and business results.
Well-established best practices — such as centralizing the transportation management organization, automating order consolidation, taking greater control of inbound freight and self-invoicing — continue to drive value for companies.
However, three new best practices have emerged: carrier collaboration, universal information access and 360-degree scorecarding. The report contains a transportation best practice checklist that a company can use to verify that its transportation roadmap reflects current best practices.
"Our investigation found that leading transportation organizations are not standing still but are implementing aggressive continuous improvement programs," Enslow added. "This is enabling them to drive increased value from transportation activities and information for their companies, while keeping freight cost and capacity issues in check."
Interested readers can register to receive a free copy of the report at http://www.aberdeen.com/summary/report/benchmark/RA_BPTransMgmt_BE.asp.
Additional Articles of Interest
— For more information on transportation management systems, see the article "The Analyst Corner: Fulfillment & Logistics" in the October/November 2004 issue of Supply & Demand Chain Executive.
— For more information on the global supply chain, with a focus on security issues, see "Building the Secure Supply Chain," the Net Best Thing article in the June/July 2003 issue of iSource Business (now Supply & Demand Chain Executive).
— Benchmarking is one way to improve your supply chain's competitive advantage. For easy guidelines that will help overcome any challenges benchmarking may present, read "Standardizing Benchmarking to Achieve Results."
- More research from Beth Enslow of Aberdeen Group.
