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Why should you use a Freight Forwarder?

Most business today have customers spread across vast geographical area even within the country, if not internationally. Hence for success of any business, it is important that the product reaches its customers unharmed, in timely manner and at a reasonable cost. If this does not happen, the business will fail, even if it has a great product.

Now imagine that a company has to ship a large package across the Atlantic Ocean (Say from the USA to some land lock country in Europe). For it, the business has to first send it to the port via truck then choose between air or sea route to cross the Atlantic. Further, it must get the product onto the ship or aircraft, (after clearing all the customs and regulatory requirements), get the delivery at the landing port across the Atlantic, clear the customs of the landing country and then again move the package by road (or another means) to the customer. For a small business, this is very daunting. This is where freight forwarders come in.

 

What is a freight forwarding business.

 

A freight forwarder is simply a business that arranges the movement of the goods for a customer from the manufacturer to the end distribution point, or to the end customer. They are the intermediary between the business and the point of delivery (end customer or distribution point). They do not move the cargo themselves; they arrange for the shipment to be picked up, transported through various modes and by different transportation providers, customs and clearing houses till it reaches the endpoint. They specialize in coordinating between various such agencies for minimum cost and speediest movement of cargo. In a way, they orchestrate between multiple service providers. They have established relationships with transporters, ocean liners and the likes, which they use to negotiate the best possible price for their clients. They use their relationship network to identify the shipping options, find the standard shipping routes and cost associated with each and select the best possible combination of available options for the shipment. All these tasks may look as formidable or complex for a simple business who just wants to get his product across, to the customer.

 

 

Services Offered by freight Forwarders

The freight forwarders generally offer a few more associated services required for the freight, which require specialized skill which may not be available with the business.

Packaging. If the cargo is going to be loaded and unloaded at several points, it needs robust packaging that can take rough handling. If the cargo is taking sea route, then the packaging must protect the cargo from sea corrosion. When shipping through air, the low air pressure and low temperatures may be a cause of concern for some of the products, and they will need sealed packaging for same. Many such specialized packaging requirements come with the transportation and other logistical options. Since freight forwarder understands the requirements and risks associated with the chosen mode of transport, they also provide (usually), the packaging that is most suitable for that mode of transport. The shipper does not have to manage additional packaging needs. This is most helpful, when there are several types of products destined for several locations with multiple modes of transportation.

 

Labeling. Cargo passing through various checkpoints usually has strict regulatory labeling requirement. Typically a cargo label would indicate following:

  •  Type and quantity of product.
  •   Handling instructions
  •   Hazardous material information
  •   Country of origin
  •   Destination
  •   Hazard and handling instructions in local language (at source and destination)

 

The freight forwarder would generally know the labeling requirements and can fulfill them more easily and precisely.

 

Documentation. Domestic and international cargo requires lot of documentation that may be daunting for a regular business. Freight forwarders have developed their expertise in knowing exactly what kind of documentation is needed for which kind of product and destination and from where and how to procure it. Some of the typical documents required for international shipping are:

  •   Bill of Landing. The contract between the shipper and the owner of the goods.
  •   Invoice. The regular commercial invoice for the product
  •   Inspection certificate. (clearance from required agency to ensure that product meets the quality as required)
  •   Insurance.
  •   Export License.
  •   Customs documents. To ensure that product can be legally sent out from the origin country and received at the destination country and is not prohibited by either of the countries.
  •   Tax papers. To ensure all the required taxes have been paid

Freight forwarders typically don’t have any capital equipment of their own. But the service they bring in can be quite valuable even for established players. They run the supply chain show, holding all the thread of various sections of the chain. The business can leave all the transportation and its related handling, packaging, documentation and other requirements to be handled by the freight forwarder and focus on what they do the best, That is making a quality product.

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How to Shape up the Future of Trucking?

Although the transportation industry has evolved, trucks continue to play a major role in carrying and delivering freight from one point to another. That said, the emphasis has always been on taking the pressure off the trucks, in order to conserve fuel, maximize overall capacity and even reduce the underlining costs. Even then, the trends have largely been in favor of truckload transportation with these vehicles accounting for almost 81 percent of the entire expenditure module. With truckload transportation and trucking continuing to rule the roost, we actually need to look at what future holds for this industry, regardless of the booming changes. 2018 is already upon us and it’s time we embrace the new changes which are expected to stay with us for the next few years.

Recruiting a more Functional Set of Drivers

Until the trucks start plying by themselves, we would be requiring drivers. However, quite recently the transportation industry has started seeing a dearth of efficient drivers which in turn is raising some important questions. The future of truckload transportation will see the companies’ focus more on exceptional driving skills, especially for the long-hauls. Needless to say, truck drivers will be the limiting factors in the long term and the lack of skills might minimize the overall growth of trucking capacity. Moreover, once the driver conundrum is taken care of, it would be easier for the companies to increase the freight volume at a steady pace.

Growth of Dedicated Trucking Services

In the next few years, industries will witness a massive growth in the adoption of dedicated trucking services. This would involve acceptance towards a host of macro factors including the likes of capacity tightening and dedicated operations. Moreover, this approach will guarantee that customers get the exact product they have signed up for. The companies are eventually realizing the fact that customers are always on the lookout for cost-effective deliveries and that too within a reasonable period of time. Over a period of time, truckload transportation will start concentrating on the same by securing prices and the underlining capacities.

Improved Capacities

Shipping containers which are half-full can lead to higher transportation costs; thereby accentuating worries for the concerned businesses. The future of truckload transportation will make sure that containers are shipped at full capacity by using sophisticated methodologies, higher load efficiencies and cross-docking techniques. Some of the other intuitive strategies include minimizing certain one-way routes and even deploying experienced third-party logistics.

Relying on Technology

Although businesses are already concentrating on technology, it is only a matter of time that supply chains and logistics managers make it their first line of defense. Be it gauging the uncertainties of economy and workforce, technology-driven ideologies and concepts are expected to last way more than the usual ones. Moreover, truckload transportation will see continued adoption of different supply chain technologies, inventory management approaches, consolidated route tracking systems and driver tracking options courtesy the growth of technology. Each one of these techniques can help improve driver safety, performance and even fuel efficiency.

Reliance on 3PL Vendors

Truckload transportation is expected to thrive only if the companies start shifting excess baggage to trusted 3PL services. That said, outsourcing certain tasks can easily increase the overall efficiency as businesses can then concentrate more on productivity and accountability. In addition to that, partnering with certain functional 3PL companies allows businesses to express themselves in a much better way as the former eliminates additional costs and also helps deliver the goods in an efficient manner. Moreover, the 3PL service providers render additional levels of safety to the fleets and concerned commodities.

Inference

The future of truckload transportation will be dictated by how well the organizations make use of the resources in hand. While keeping up with the industrial requirements is a prerequisite, it automatically boils down to how companies express themselves in terms of logistics and fulfillment. At the end, it’s all about delivering the products efficiently to the customers while minimizing overhead costs, associated intricacies and product damages. Needless to say, the quality of drivers and fleet with determine the fate of trucking and truckload transportation and 3PL services will surely play an important role in shaping up the same. Be it outsourcing select services pertaining to transportation or adopting the best technologies for the job, future of trucking will thrive on a proactive approach.

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Benefits of a Transportation Management System

Companies dependent on retail chains and ecommerce solutions usually deploy TMS or Transportation Management Systems for simplifying certain fulfillment based tasks. A functional TMS plan is highly beneficial to businesses as it allows them to transport products in a very cost-effective manner. In addition to that, Transportation Management System also involves intermodal freight movements, comprising of inbound, outbound, domestic, international and commercial shipments. The best thing about TMS is that it can seamlessly function with the concerned company or even with an outsourced fulfillment or logistics partner.

Why Companies are Emphasizing on TMS Solutions?

TMS or Transportation Management System is the only supply chain tool that reduces additional freight costs. Having this strategy on-board helps organizations immensely as they can pair up logistics with functional analytics and optimization techniques. TMS solutions work way better than some of the more conventional supply chain management techniques and in the subsequent sections, we shall enlist some benefits which set them apart from the usual ones.

Better Customer Satisfactions Levels

Improved Warehouse Efficiency

While some might argue that a transportation management system has nothing to do with warehouse management, there is a direct correlation between the two. With a functional TMS solution on-board, companies can quickly dispatch the shipments; thereby saving a lot of time for performing warehouse duties. Moreover, with the TMS module integrated alongside the ERP, data entry issues and associated errors can be readily avoided. In a nutshell, TMS and WMS work together for improving the efficiency of the concerned supply chain framework. The inadequacies are duly minimized followed by higher levels of cost savings.

 

Better Delivery Options

Transportation Management System helps optimize the shipping techniques of the companies; thereby offering a host of exciting fulfillment options to the customers. Be it the inbound shipping programs or the pool-point shipping ideas, having a robust TMS module can open a door of opportunities for the customers. In addition to that, this approach to shipping and fulfillment also covers multiple locations and serves as a precursor to the Omni-channel customer experience. Lastly, one person with remote access can easily manage the entire delivery schema for multiple networks.

Reduction in Inventory

Organizations dealing with surplus inventory issues are best served by a TMS module on-board.  As companies can now ship products at a faster rate, it becomes easier for them to plan out the stocks in a better manner. This eventually minimizes the issues related to surplus stocks and can help businesses improve productivity.

Improved Cash Flow

Needless to say, a functional transport management system can also help an organization improve the overall cash flow. With freight accounting made easy, improved cash flow is something businesses can expect going into the future. Moreover, a TMS module offers a leeway to the shippers as they can now save a lot of money by tweaking the structure of inbound logistics. For those who are interested in facts and figures, companies can easily save something in the ballpark of 2 to 5 percent by cutting out duplicate payments, inaccurate charges and other logistical pitfalls.

Advanced Analytics

While we have addressed this aspect in some of the previous sections, it’s only appropriate to discuss more about the analytical side of transport management system. The associated analytics identify low-cost shipping options for businesses; thereby helping companies save a lot of money. Moreover, with shippers having fewer issues to worry about, the entire management team can concentrate more on warehouse and inventory control.

Inference

Over the past few years, it has become easier to implementing TMS solutions to the entire process of warehousing, fulfillment and inventory control. The best part about using this business strategy is the backhaul support and consolidation opportunities where companies can save a lot of additional costs without having to compromise on customer satisfaction levels. What makes most sense is to link a robust TMS module with a highly efficient warehouse management system. While this promotes better visibility of the entire supply chain, it can actually improve the process of inventory forecasting and minimize the data-specific errors.

3PL, sungistix, warehouse, copacking,packaging
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What are various 3PL (Third Party Logistics) Services

Many companies are still not comfortable with the idea of outsourcing their logistics operations as they are still unsure of what exactly does a Third-Party Logistics (3PL) mean and what value do they provide. In all fairness, the 3PL companies don’t make it any easier either. There are so many 3PL providers with so much breadth and variety of service, that a new client is often confused on how to categorize and compare these various players. Let us try and understand what is a 3PL player and what kinds of 3PL players are there in the market.

 

Who is a Third-Party Logistics Provider? There is no one definition of third party logistics or 3PL as it is more colloquially called, that is applicable all around. Let’s take a quick look to understand the evolution of 3PL, so that one can understand from the context. Earlier, in around 70’s there were only trucking companies. The shipper provided and loaded the final packaged material to the transporter, who then transported to the destination. Then came the IMCs. These Intermodal Marketing Companies, plugged between the shipper and the carrier. They accepted the package from the shipper and managed all the retail transportation engagement. Going forward these companies started offering other value added services such as warehouse storage, Packaging, financial needs and other services. The key to understand there is that these companies only provide services to the shipper and value for shipping company in terms of handling their logistics requirement, at any point, in their supply chain. Today the council of supply chain management professionals defines 3PL as outsourcing all or much of a company’s logistics operations to a specialized company. A Federal legislation passed in 2008 legally defines a 3PL as “a person who solely receives, holds, or otherwise transports a consumer product in the ordinary course of business but who does not take title to the product.” Thus, we can assume that any company that provides a logistics service in any supply chain, can be called a 3PL company. A transporter, a warehouse space provider, a special storage provider, a packaging service provider, a booking, tracking, auditing based or financial based service provider, or information service provider for these services, or provider of any combination of these services can be termed as a third-party logistics service provider or 3PL provider.

 

Now that we understand what is a 3PL provider is, let’s look at various kinds of 3PL providers.

 

Transportation based: Here the primary service offered is transportation. Trucking in various segments, from wholesale to retail to individual deliveries. They own the physical transportation machines, specialized transportation vehicles (cold storage trucks) and networks and system specialized for fleet utilization and route optimization. Their aim is to optimize the transportation cost (as opposed to other kinds of costs in logistics). They usually club various shipments based on transportation cost optimization. While these companies may offer other services such as warehouse, they are typically in association with a partner who provides those services.

 

Warehouse Based: These companies own the storage space at the distribution points. They specialize in warehouse operations. They make significant investments in warehouse space, warehouse technologies (cranes, lifts), automation to quickly move the products inside warehouse, specialized warehouse needs such as cold storage and hazardous chemicals etc. They have their operations specialized for optimum use of space and their systems optimized for movement of inventory such as FIFO, maintaining minimum and maximum levels of inventory, close monitoring of expiry sensitive inventory such as food products. Apart from inside warehouse operation, they also specialize in locations of warehouse, at critical nodal points such as important ports, or close to big markets. Large players usually operate multiple warehouses spread geographically at important points, having these warehouses interconnected with dedicated transportation. The warehouse based providers usually tie-up with Transporters to provide the last mile delivery to the customer. They will usually have tie ups with various transporters to cater to different needs of the customers.

 

Freight Forwarder: These companies do not own any physical asset. They tie up with various other logistics service providers, manage the relationships and operation between them, for their clients and give their clients an end to end logistics service. To elaborate a little more Freight forwarders, specialize in arranging the storage and shipping of merchandize on behalf of the shippers. They usually provide a full range of service such as inward transportation tracking, documentation preparation, warehousing, cargo space booking, freight charges negotiations, insurance and claiming insurance claims. Freight forwarders are especially useful if you are planning to operate in international markets. i.e. Your business involves import and export of material or finished products.

 

Financial based Logistics services provider: These companies specialize in the financial aspects of the logistics. They provide freight payment and audit service along with accounting, control and tool for monitoring and management of inventory. They also provide small financial solutions for logistics (getting the LOC for freight loading or unloading)

 

While many companies provide these individual services, quite a few also provide various combinations or all of these services. It is up to the client to decide, which one is best suitable for his business requirements. Clients also need to keep in mind the that players not only differ in the kind of service, but level of partnership the 3PL firms provide. This depends on the nature of engagement that exists between the business and it’s 3PL provider.

  • These relationships are on per transaction basis. This is kind of Postal service. You pay for each transaction and that’s it.
  • These relationships are based on long term contracts. The rates are negotiated for bulk volumes and systems are integrated for easy flow of information between the two entities.
  • These are more like partnerships. The 3PL will make investments in their business and you will be committed to them. Both, the client and the 3PL grow together.

Businesses outsourcing for the first time, may and usually do start from the transactional model. As they gain experience and the volumes of shipments grows, they move to more mature models of engagement, forging partnerships with their suppliers.

 

Outsourcing to a 3PL player may seem confusing at the beginning. There are a lot of players with different value propositions and you will need to invest time to choose the one that is right for you. However, once you have the right partner, you do not have to worry about logistics and focus all your energies into your core business practices that result in growth of your business.