Embrace the Future of Manufacturing Transportation Spend Management
The manufacturing supply chain industry was hit hard during the COVID-19 pandemic, struggling with remote working conditions, fewer resources, and disruption in every leg of the supply chain. Only 28.5% of companies had the supply chain plan and capabilities to deal with the pandemic. This has forced manufacturing supply chains to scramble for a rapid evolution of new processes, technological transformation, and accelerated decision making in order to keep afloat.
Going forward, manufacturing supply chains must optimize processes to remain competitive in a volatile market and be able to deal with any unforeseen events. Outsourcing processes, utilizing seasoned experts, leveraging automation, and honing Transportation Spend Management are now fundamental parts of the future of resilient and agile supply chains.
We’ll take you through what the future holds for manufacturing, and how Trax can help transform your manufacturing Transportation Spend Management into a global leader.
Greater Visibility
One of the greatest challenges in supply chain management is achieving end-to-end visibility. Prior to the pandemic, 75% of supply chain executives cited visibility as a main challenge. Today, it’s no longer a goal—it’s a necessity. You need higher visibility into your operations, cost drivers, performance, resource utilization, and more to be competitive and keep business scalable.
Digital transformation in the form of enhanced data management brings deeper and broader visibility across regions, carriers, and legs of the supply chain. The right technology and best practices offer a consistent influx of high-quality data and easy data management, removing data silos and minimizing errors so you have real-time information to make data-driven decisions.
To achieve such a feat, we’ve introduced the Trax Transportation Spend Management Maturity Model, a framework that provides a roadmap for large, global enterprises to shift from a lack of visibility and control to a fully optimized and accurate data-based transportation supply chain, for all modes and geographies. By maturing through the three tiers of the model (Proactive, Optimized, and Leading) with our tools, such as Budget Manager or Match Manager, you’ll perfect your practices and elevate your data management process to ensure unhindered and unparalleled visibility into your Transportation Spend Management.
More Automation
The pandemic highlighted just how much supply chains still rely on manual efforts, as well as the shortcomings of such practices. Manufacturing supply chain management is undergoing a revolution of automation to increase accuracy, utilization, and efficiency through high-tech solutions.
Up to 56% of leading executives say investing in automation will make onshore manufacturing viable, the importance of which was highlighted by the pandemic. By automating your manufacturing supply chain, you have the flexibility to handle remote working conditions, eliminate human errors, and elevate your data management processes.
Trax has perfected methods to help you transform your freight audit into Transportation Spend Management. Freight audit and payment services, which is a cornerstone for optimizing your Transportation Spend Management process, and a plethora of solutions like our Rate Manager and RFx Manager ease the burden off your team and help you overcome challenges to boost your automation and efficiency.
Better Agility
Historically, the name of the game for any supply chain was cost-effectiveness. But in 2020, companies that focused on cost-oriented supply chains began to suffer multiple disruptions and client declines. However, it’s possible to focus on cost reduction and quality, performance, and efficiencies—companies that adapted and shifted their agile supply chains thrived, turning the challenges into opportunities to onboard new clients, set new standards, and grow their market share. A company’s brand and image are at stake during such upheavals. It’s no wonder that 40% of executives plan on increasing their investments in making their supply chains more agile and adaptable.
Future successful manufacturing supply chains should have flexibility, agility, and a dynamic nature that enables them to shift suddenly in response to unforeseen events. During the pandemic, manufacturers realized the gaps present in their supply chains, such as limited visibility and a lack of proactive planning. Companies can either react to the environment and hope they’re resilient enough, or they can have greater visibility to see what’s ahead and proactively manage for even greater resiliency. Managing a plant or operations virtually proved impossible. In order to succeed, you need solutions that support a reduced workforce, improve efficiencies, and optimize processes.
Adopting best practices and leveraging technological solutions brings agility to your Transportation Spend Management. This is especially apparent when working on complex shipments where multi-modal shipping, capacity, and carrier capabilities play a big part. With tools like Trax’s Carrier Management Services and our Match Manager, it’s easy to identify the best carriers for the job. With such tools at your fingertips, you can combine carrier- and item-related data to ensure cost effectiveness while also determining the best shipping option—be it quality, mode, or timeliness—for your local or global shipments. Centralizing your data like this starts you on the journey through the Trax Transportation Spend Management Maturity Model toward full optimization.
Advancing through the Trax Transportation Spend Management Maturity Model shifts your supply chain from being monotonous to becoming extremely dynamic, and the constant influx of data along with the optimization of your processes helps you become more proactive and anticipate major disruptions and use them to your advantage, widening the gap between you and the competition.
Optimized Transportation Logistics Networks for Globalization
Major disruptions in global transportation bring about opportunities for manufacturers to seek new suppliers, revamp shipping processes, and identify viable markets. Optimized transportation logistics networks mean you can scale business on a local, regional, and global level without missing a beat.
When you optimize your Transportation Spend Management practices, windows open to target existing markets in new ways that were previously difficult to pursue due to cost or operational hurdles. Another example is maturing your freight audit and payment, through a partner like Trax that specializes in global Transportation Spend Management, you can target any global market, regardless of currency, technology, or carrier.
Transportation Spend Management also normalizes and enhances your data management. Having data centralized and easily accessible for robust analytics reporting and business intelligence means you can make quick decisions on a local or global scale. A great start to honing data management is through our freight audit and payment services, as once optimized you’ve set the foundation to take your Transportation Spend Management to the next level. Our carrier management services continue building that pyramid of data, constantly delivering real-time data for carrier performance, compliance, capacity, and other factors. Creating a solid influx of data is the first step toward setting up your supply chain management to be a leader in the industry.
Supply Chain as a Service (SCaaS)
More companies are outsourcing processes in a bid to free up resources, enhance supply chain agility, increase cost reductions, and optimize processes through the know-how of experts in the field. According to a Gartner report, supply chain executives say outsourcing supply chain processes has helped them exceed their functional supply chain objectives (71%), end-to-end supply chain objectives (68%), and overall business objectives (72%).
Supply chain as a service (SCaaS) grows more impactful by the day, and as pressures have forced staff reductions, businesses need to turn to a core of highly-skilled experts focused on strategic decisions and opportunities rather than spend time o n more time-consuming tasks, such as claims management and accruals management. For example, our Carrier Management services ensure proactive management of carrier performance and exception management with all of your carriers, regardless of global region or mode, which allows your transportation logistics team to focus on running your business. Another example is our Accrual Manager, which helps your teams to accrue more precisely so you have more accurate planning and forecasting, or even our TraxPays service where we handle paying your carrier invoices.
By outsourcing your Transportation Spend Management processes to Trax, you have a consistent influx of real-time and high-quality data that allows you to focus on making important strategic decisions. You save time, money, and gain global experts at your disposal to advise you along the way.
Sustainability
Another emerging shift is a move toward more sustainable operations—an average of 70% of consumers are willing to pay an added premium for sustainable products. Businesses that adopt high-tech energy management systems, renewable energy, green packaging, and any other methods to lower the carbon footprint are being constantly praised by the masses. Companies that offer sustainable products gain a bigger and more loyal customer base.
To be able to consistently adopt green practices, however, you need the visibility to increase cost reductions, produce accurate forecasting, and create comprehensive plans. Transportation Spend Management delivers those insights into your spend and provides unwavering control over your operations, ensuring you have reliable data that informs the scalability, profitability, and nature of quality delivered to your customers.
The Future of Transportation Spend Management is Here
We now know, thanks to the rollercoaster of 2020, that agile and dynamic manufacturing supply chains are the future. A higher focus on visibility, flexibility, and control over financial and operation processes transform your Transportation Spend Management so you can dominate markets, widen the gap between you and the competition, and drive innovation and change—all while bolstering your bottom line.
The manufacturing supply chain of the future is already here. Set your company up for success and contact Trax today.