Springtime always brings an uptick in freight volumes, particularly in produce and for all types of outdoor retail goods. Capacity was already tight before this year’s surge, and many shippers are transferring more freight to brokerage companies as a result. What appears to be a favorable business environment has created a fair share of challenges […]
4 Ways Freight Brokers Can Expand in a Tight Capacity Market
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The Carbon Disclosure Project: The Best Companies Make Use of Transportation Management Systems
The Carbon Disclosure Project puts out an A List of top performers every year. Their 2014 report lists 190 companies. I took a look at the 21 companies listed in the Consumer Staples category, a mix of food & beverage and retail corporations. I was curious how many of these companies were using a transportation […]
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Demystifying Supply Chain Optimization
A little over 6 months ago, I had the opportunity to talk about the most famous problem in Computer Science, the travelling salesman problem (TSP), and its real world corollary, the vehicle routing problem (VRP), which remains one of the most studied problems in transportation. The issue with these problems and others like them is […]
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Improved communication helps to drive efficiencies into transportation scheduling
In today’s tight trucking market, shippers are competing more and more for carrier capacity. To stay competitive, shippers need a best-in-class transportation management process that features dock appointment scheduling. Extended waiting times for pick-up and delivery is something fewer carriers are willing to accept, or when they do accept these extended times, their rate may […]
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Kimberly-Clark’s Journey to Logistics Procurement Excellence
Jenni Stamps and Melanie Payne, the Domestic and International Pricing Managers respectively at the Kimberly-Clark Corporation (KCC), spoke at this year’s JDA Focus. Kimberly-Clark, the $21 billion consumer goods company with brands like Huggies and Kleenex, is a major user of JDA’s TMS solution. The company is also one of the larger shippers in North […]
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Sears Implements Descartes Routing Solution To Optimize Home Deliveries
The Descartes Systems Group had their user conference – Descartes Evolution 2015 – this week in Miami. There were about 400 in attendance. The best presentation I saw at the event was given by two executives from Sears. Sears is a North American department store and general merchandise retailer with over $30 billion in revenues. […]
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TMS Growth Drivers: ROI, Lower Barriers to Entry, & Omni-Channel
ARC Advisory Group conducts an annual analysis of the global transportation management systems (TMS) market. The research process includes the analysis of large amounts of information and interviews with executives from numerous TMS software companies. The process concludes with the publication of ARC’s TMS Global Market Research Study, which analyzes the market shares across numerous […]
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From parcel to rail: using a single TMS to ride the wave of e-commerce
Eight percent of retail sales in the United States are made online today and e-commerce will grow by more than 10 percent a year reaching $370 billion in 2017, according to analyst research. Manufacturers and retailers need more than websites to ride this tidal wave. Sales are short lived without the capacity to fulfill orders […]
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Why the Retail Buying Experience Demands a TMS
It used to be that clothes shopping for me was an in-store experience, browsing the aisles and casually perusing around to find the perfect item. These days, life is filled with work, play dates, and kids sporting activities leaving little time for enjoyable store visits. Online shopping from my computer or my phone has become […]
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Mission Critical KPI’s: How to Keep a TMS Implementation on Track
I have been conducting a lot of research around TMS applications recently, and my colleague Steve Banker and I began to discuss how TMS providers keep their implementations on track. We determined that the providers must use a set of criteria and KPI’s to make sure that the project stays on time and on budget. […]
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eCommerce Shippers Need New Solutions
In my conversations with industry pros, there was a disagreement about whether there was much of any growth in the use of parcel software in most industries. But there was no disagreement that ecommerce and omni-channel initiatives were leading to a double digit growth in sales of multicarrier software to retailers. Ecommerce was also leading to increased usage of parcel software by consumer goods companies who were engaged in drop shipping their products directly to a […]
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The Ubers of Last Mile Freight
The Uber-style marketplaces were contacted and analyzed for this report. Tech startups, founded with the idea of using Uber style technology to reinvent last mile freight, have raised about $120 million since the beginning of 2015. This is much less than the billion plus dollars invested since the beginning of 2015 into startups promising to deliver retail merchandise, groceries, or restaurant meals within a few hours, or even minutes.
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TMS Growth Drivers: ROI, Omni-Channel, Better Solutions, and Developing Countries
I’ve written on here recently about our GTM study, and about the market dynamics that impact the growth of GTM solutions. Similarly, ARC Advisory Group conducts an annual analysis of the global transportation management systems (TMS) market. The research process includes the analysis of large amounts of information and interviews with executives from numerous TMS software companies. The process concludes with the publication of ARC’s TMS Global Market Research Study, which analyzes the market shares […]
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Explosion in eCommerce Leads to New Shipping Solutions
While robust parcel solutions offer workflow designed to prevent paying too much for a particular shipment, the workflows in the retail multicarrier solutions can be both more extensive and much more interesting. The Descartes Systems Group acquired a company called Oz DEVELOPMENT that is designed for small and medium sized retailers. Ken Wood, the Executive Vice President of Product Management at Descartes, explained that small and medium sized business may need to “touch multiple ecommerce […]
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Takeaways from 2016 MercuryGate Dominate
Last week I attended MercuryGate’s annual user conference at the Royal Sonesta in New Orleans, LA. The conference’s theme was “Dominate.” To do this, MercuryGate is striving to make their customers smarter, stronger, faster, and better, and the presentations that I attended all hit on this. Over the course of the last year, MercuryGate has released new products and made upgrades to existing products to make managing your transportation easier. Everything MercuryGate does, and everything […]
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Omni-Channel’s Ripple Effect on Transportation
When Transportation Optimization and New Shopping Behaviors Collide One needs to go back to the early 2000s to see green shoots of modern omni-channel retail. While web-based e-commerce began in the late 90s, consumer and retailer appetites didn’t get whetted for omni-channel experiences until the early part of the last decade. Indeed, by 2002, Best Buy was saying more than half of its customers were checking its website before coming to the store. It was […]
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What is New in Fleet Safety?
The Electronic Logging Data (ELD) mandate, Hours of Service (HOS), Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s (FMSCA’s) safety scores; It is clear that owning a truck fleet comes with compliance challenges. The Internet of Things, predictive analytics, new BI platforms; It is also clear the external IT environment presents opportunities. How are new capabilities in IT solutions being leveraged to meet fleet compliance and safety challenges?
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Design is Forever: Why a modern TMS makes all the difference
A transportation management system (TMS) can give you one of the strongest ROIs of any supply chain management software – if you find the right one for your business. The trouble is, most TMS systems on the market now were designed to meet the needs of the industry 15-20 years ago. Consequently, these designs prevent the TMS from handling important aspects of a business. This has resulted in a large number of TMS implementations failing […]
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Selecting a TMS: Where Does One Start?
Earlier this year, ARC developed a supplier selection tool for Transportation Management Systems. The selection guide contains general guidance, around 200 specific selection criteria, ROI data, market data, and supplier profiles to help an organization’s team members make more informed, fact-based decisions. This version of the guide has been updated with extensive criteria related to routing and managing private and dedicated fleets. It can help a technology selection team find common ground, with lower risk […]
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Is Your Routing Guide Ready for a Tune Up?
Asking, “What’s the point of conducting regular procurement events?” is just like asking, “What’s the point of conducting routine car maintenance?” You could skip some maintenance, but you’d probably pay for it in the end. And the same goes for procurement events. Whether it’s your supply chain or your car, regular “maintenance” can keep things running smoothly and save you money. To stick with my metaphor, all the parts in your car need to run […]
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More Pages to Explore .....
