It’s amazing how business expenditures are allocated in a down economy. Value and ROI are no longer the driving forces behind capital expenditures. Price is now the primary influence in many purchases, particularly in transportation technology. Additionally, unbudgeted expenditures are basically non-existent – regardless of the price or the payback.
However, those companies that are confident that conditions will soon change and are visionary in their business objectives are now seeing tremendous success. One area where supply chain executives and transportation decision makers are now investing in is Business Intelligence for their transportation operations.
While traditional fleet management systems have focused on the performance of mobile assets (the truck and driver), today’s advanced applications are now interpreting that data into actionable business information across the supply chain. At-a glance-views of business trends, customer impact and business unit performance provide users with the ability to manage by exception and greatly improve visibility across the entire mobile supply chain. But how does the value of providing better service to customers and the value of people making better decisions faster translate into ROI? Can optimizing business processes within transportation and delivery operations yield a tangible ROI?
Transportation Business Intelligence offers a dramatic ROI. Businesses can make better, quicker decisions through facts-based analysis. It's not just about getting the right information to the right people at the right time, he said, but determining that the information is in fact being used to make better decisions. An informed transportation executive can leverage a business intelligence dashboard to identify an event or trend, drill down into detail, determine the root cause for that event, and quickly implement a change that can drive new sales, avoid costs, etc. Essentially, executives can now get the information they need to manage their business, and the ROI is seen across the supply chain in drastically reduced costs (labor, fuel, maintenance, etc.), increased revenues and improved cash flow. Additionally, BI users are defining new performance metrics for their transportation operations that can provide new levels of operational efficiency (route optimization, on-site invoicing, inventory management, etc.)
The most significant ROI of implementing Supply Chain visibility and transportation business intelligence tools, is the competitive advantage for businesses that are optimized to thrive immediately when the economy begins to improve. While competitors will be buried in useless data and reports, dashboard users get faster access to real-time data so they can get straight to the problem right away, manage their business better, and respond to changes in the market better.
Author: Frank Moreno
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Driving End-to-End Automation
Extending Supply Chain Management into the Cab of your Vehicles
Cadec Global, Inc
Driving End-to-End Automation
About Cadec Global, Inc.
Cadec Global enables mobile asset optimization, process automation and operations visibility through its advanced fleet management solutions. With over 30 years of innovation and experience in the trucking industry, Cadec enables transportation and distribution managers, fleet and logistics experts and business executives to reduce costs, enhance customer service, enforce compliance and safety regulations, and improve driver productivity. Cadec’s marquee customer list includes market-leading private and for-hire fleets across multiple industries throughout North America.
