Tag: Third-party logistics service providers

Logistics Management Software – Everything You Should Know

Logistics Management Software:
Business Applications & Use Cases

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Pfizer became the world’s largest sterile injectables supplier during the pandemic because the company excels in its logistics management. Without logistics software management, neither can they store, transport, and distribute the COVID-19 vaccine to multiple countries, maintaining ultra-low temperatures.
In today’s fast-paced environment with growing transport volumes, logistic management software play a key role in digitizing every touchpoint of the supply chain- monitor shipments, optimize delivery routes, communicate with partners, handle a gamut of operations, and oversee distribution with complete transparency. Investing in logistic management software streamlines your processes and eliminates workflow headaches, yielding positive results with significant changes in processes, procedures, and distribution.
In this article, we will cover everything that you need to know about logistics management software.

Table of Contents

What is Logistics Management Software?

Logistics management is a part of the supply chain that uses planning and implementation to store and deliver goods and services to the customer. Typically a logistics management system administers inbound and outbound transportation management, warehouse management, fleet management, processing orders, inventory control, managing third-party logistics service providers, and planning supply and demand. It coordinates several critical activities of the supply chain that range from product development to commercialization, such as production planning, sourcing, procurement, packaging, and dispatching. It also involves finding a suitable means to deliver goods and services to the end user.
Logistics Management Software (LMS) simplifies logistics operations by refining the production cycle and making it easier to access important information quickly. Logistics management software helps businesses manage the various processes in the production cycle, from delivering raw materials to shipping the finished products to the consumers.
Logistics Management Software Market has witnessed tremendous growth in USD million from 2017 to 2022, with the highest CAGR estimated to reach USD in 2029.
Source: Industry Research
Logistics software has become broader in its scope and functionality to deal with a vast array of operations and processes. It shares similarities with supply chain management software (SCMS), which contains tools that help deal with transactions, processes, and suppliers. The functionality of logistics management software extends to areas such as
  • Processing customer requests
  • Processing purchase orders
  • Inventory Management
  • Suppliers Management
  • Sales and Distribution
Logistics management software can get rid of all the conventional approaches like paperwork and spreadsheets to simplify management. Consequently, logistics will become more refined and fast, changing how materials, goods, freight, sales orders, inventory, and production are managed. It has three variations: warehouse management systems, enterprise resource planning systems, and integrated supply chain management suites.
Companies with an in-house logistics or supply chain division and third-party logistics providers utilize any of these different versions according to their requirements to efficiently manage their logistical and supply chain operations.

Key Features of Logistics Management Software

A logistic and supply management company must have powerful and functional management software to manage its operations, planning, procurement, and distribution of products, data information, and finances. If your company is looking to procure or build a logistic management solution, ensure it includes certain features necessary for the smooth functioning of shipment. Some of the key must-have features of Logistics Management Software include-
An order management system effectively handles large volumes of online orders. It monitors and tracks all the orders from the time of placing an order till it reaches the delivery point. It manages all the processes like order receiving, scheduling, processing, storage, and shipping and delivery. Some features like automatic scheduling, real-time optimization and tracking, automatic bill generation, managing order status, and multiple payment gateways simplify the order management process for businesses.
CRM modules store relevant information from customer orders, such as order dates, contact information, cargo status, order estimation, and payment information. This ensures that every transaction is recorded in one place to help logistics managers easily control the flow of inventory and easily look up the associated records whenever needed.
With proper inventory management, organizations can easily monitor active orders, track shipments, and reorder supplies with real-time sales data and historical trend analysis. Logistics management organizes, tracks, and processes orders as they come in, thereby saving the organization’s time and money by automatically fulfilling orders as they come in and reducing the risk of order errors or fraud.
Warehouse management helps the owners and managers to monitor their physical warehouses in real time. It uses IoT devices, sensors, and smart storage tools to maintain optimal conditions for the storage and distribution of inventory with minimal human intervention. This translates to faster shipping, lower cost, optimized storage, tracking, and order fulfillment.
Efficient supply chain management helps to maximize customer value, increase profitability, and achieve sustainable competitive advantage. It manages the transformation of goods from raw materials to finished goods and links the production, shipment, and delivery of goods. The activities involved include discovering optimal sourcing locations, determining the optimal quantity and type of inventory required to meet demand, and identifying the best delivery locations for the products.
The demand forecasting feature helps organizations to plan inventory and supply based on the increase and decrease in demand. Demand planning tools help analyze a product’s lifecycle based on historical sales data, identify trends, and predict future demand. This feature helps to avoid ordering too much or too little inventory.
Transportation management capabilities help businesses to plan, execute, and optimize the physical transportation of finished products from warehouses to customers. It helps fleet managers to identify optimal delivery routes, streamline driver assignments, and speed up pickup and delivery operations, thereby minimizing costs. It also helps to predict when their delivery times will be the longest and shortest.
Modern logistics management software includes a real-time visibility feature to obtain the status of every product and shipment in the supply chain. This allows managers to access real-time information about the location and progress in every stage of the supply chain, helping them make informed decisions about when to order more inventory and stop production.

Business Benefits of Using Logistics Software

Proper planning, sourcing, production, delivery, and return are required to improve supply chain performance. Handing these processes to logistics management software provides operational fluency to the supply chain. With logistics management software, a company or 3PL (third-party logistics) provider can avail of the following benefits.
  • Optimization and cost reduction of the supply chain from 9% to 4% can double profits.
  • 70% believe that logistics management software is a key driver for quality customer service.
  • Good logistics management software can provide 24x7 customer support.
  • Smart and intelligent route planning can ensure a good fulfillment rate and customer satisfaction.

Refine Transportation

Transportation is a crucial and vital area in logistics management. It incurs the most fuel, labor, energy, and shipping charges. Using logistics software helps to simplify and reduce the cost incurred in transportation considerably. Logistics management software makes it easy to analyze data and make relevant decisions for lowering costs and maximizing efficiency.

Faster Delivery

The logistics and supply chain industry are prone to face several issues affecting delivery and delays. By incorporating logistics software, businesses can rapidly deliver their products to customers. Logistics management software significantly improves delivery time by speeding up the production cycle and choosing a suitable carrier. It ultimately reduces shipping delays to a great extent.

Minimize Human Errors

Another notable advantage of implementing logistics management software is minimizing human errors. Manually analyzing large quantities of data is tedious and time-consuming, which leads to flaws. Logistics software simplifies work by quickly processing these data and seamlessly pushing forward the operations with minimal delays.

Automate Functions

Process Automation is a tremendous boon of logistics software integration. Logistics software easily automates certain functions like creating shipment routes, load planning, and tendering of loads to carriers. Moreover, it eliminates paperwork, which helps deal with the processes efficiently and timely.

Reduce Costs

Logistics software can automatically compare different shipping services, delivery agents, and transportation methods to find the least-pricing ones. The other way logistics software reduces costs is by lowering the expedited shipments through improved shipment planning.

Customer Support

Logistics software provides good customer support service tools for all assistance. It provides a platform to centralize all customer support needs. Chatbots, automated alerts, notifications, and virtual assistants improve customer service speed and quality.

How To Overcome Logistics Challenges with Logistics Software

The logistics industry is complex and involves a lot of complicated processes and hassles. With the pandemic, businesses were compelled to rely more on logistics management software to pace with changing demands and provide essential items to customers. To address the pressing challenges in logistics management, a modern logistics software solution promises to add increased scalability, speed of delivery, efficiency, and accuracy.

1 Rising transportation costs

With the hike in fuel prices, the cost of transporting goods increases substantially. The logistics industry is greatly impacted by the challenge of maintaining low shipping costs for delivering products to customers.
The route optimization feature in logistics software can help the logistics industry overcome this chaotic challenge. With the right implementation, companies can easily detect the fastest route to deliver goods and save fuel expenses. Hence, this is economical for the logistics company and customers, as they can avoid paying high shipping costs.

2 Delay in delivery

Another important problem is the inadequate waiting time for products. Due to climatic conditions, factory shutdowns, port capacity issues, or other disruptive events, delivery of products may be slowed or sometimes comes to a standstill.
Logistics software makes it easy to automate your delivery processes and increase efficiency. Get timely updates on the movement of products using tracking software or real-time visibility of shipments. This helps to give a bigger picture of when the goods are dispatched, procured, and when they will be delivered. Automation saves your time lost when working manually and provides accurate data and tracking, thereby improving the overall delivery process.

3 Lack Effective Coordination

The major problems in the logistics industry creep in from its inconsistency and fragmentation. With multiple parties involved in the logistics supply chain- manufacturers, storekeepers, drivers, managers, and customers, it is difficult to have centralized control over their communication path.
Such issues can be alleviated by adopting effective communication and real-time visibility software systems that can be integrated directly into the warehouse management system, providing access to partners and clients. This puts everyone in the loop with proper visibility of the various stages in production and distribution.

4 Meeting the demand surge

Demand surges or panic buying influences inventory stock levels and customer service satisfaction and can also impact the entire supply chain. Filling the inventory stock on time is a massive operation and requires proper planning.
Forecast accuracy and automation help get a proper inventory stock overview and meet perpetual demand fluctuations. To fulfill growing delivery volumes and maintain customer satisfaction, logistic software with a digitized system helps to orchestrate these operations effectively and flawlessly.

5 Warehouse management errors

Flaws in warehouse management are common such as misplaced products, packing or shipping wrong products, incomplete orders, or damaged items during delivery. Such human errors can become costly when they are not regulated.
The best way to reduce such mistakes is by leveraging an effective and updated warehouse management system. Logistics companies must invest in modern technologies like artificial and augmented intelligence, advanced analytics, automation, and warehouse robotics to manage their inventory and improve business scalability and competitive edge.
IoT helps to improve the logistic processes by providing proper visibility in every stage of the supply chain and maintaining inventory efficiency. Integrating an IoT device in the logistics ecosystem enables clear-cut transparency in various operations like real-time visibility of goods, condition monitoring, storage and warehousing, and fleet management.
Logistics companies use AI to identify patterns in data and churn insights. It helps to advance operations such as intelligent transportation, route optimization, demand forecasting, budget planning, etc. McKinsey reports that AI-driven logistics optimization can reduce costs through real-time forecasts and behavioral coaching. The potential incremental value of AI in the logistics and transportation industry (89%) will be more than other analytics techniques.
Over the last few decades, innovative logistic robotic companies have worked hard to mesh AI and machine learning, better sensors and response capabilities, warehouse management software, or logistics management software. Recently, warehouse robotics in the supply chain has picked up pace exponentially. There has been colossal funding and investment in the industry. For example, Alibaba invested $15 billion into robotic logistics infrastructure, and Google invested $500 million into automated logistics for JD. It is also estimated that the global market for warehouse robotics in the supply chain will reach a market value of $22.4 billion by the end of 2021.
In a pandemic-troubled world, contactless delivery is more critical than ever. eCommerce companies and carriers face increasing pressure due to the surge in online shopping. It’s crucial to stay agile by ensuring business continuity. At the same time, it is also vital to remain safe and meet delivery needs. Electronic parcel lockers, contactless parcel delivery and collection, and self-service pick-up automate delivery processes to reduce physical interactions between customers and delivery agents. Custom logistics software applications can help fulfill the increasing demand for last-mile delivery. Fingent helps build healthy tech partnership ecosystems to ensure uninterrupted supply and distribution of your products and services.
Automating warehouses promises to streamline processes and improve efficiency, speed, and productivity with a considerable reduction in human interventions. Many processes, such as procurement, distribution, customer service, etc., can be automated along a supply chain. The Global Logistics Automation Market size was $50.9 billion in 2020, but its CAGR of 12.4% may grow to $82.3 billion by 2026.
Blockchain, also known as distributed ledger technology, can record transactions between parties securely and permanently. The shared and secured databases enabled by blockchain help avoid intermediaries and third parties verifying records and coordinating supply chain transactions. Blockchain helps increase the traceability of the material supply chain, improve the credibility and trust of shared data, digitize physical assets like contracts and critical documents, streamline administrative processes, reduce costs, and enable effective auditing of supply chain data.

Example of blockchain application in logistics: The international logistics giant DHL uses blockchain-based serialization of pharmaceutical drugs and products to ensure that the products come only from legitimate manufacturers, not counterfeit, and are adequately tracked and traced through their journey from origin to consumption.
The emergence of sensor technologies and AI has contributed heavily to the rapid growth of predictive maintenance in the logistics industry. Supply chain leaders want to utilize data effectively to optimize predictive maintenance, forecast demands, adjust inventory levels, improve cold chain transportation, and protect the integrity of the supply chain. Smart and optimized data management through predictive analytics and AI allow logistics providers to refine and transform the supply chain in the coming years.
Cloud-integrated logistics management software allows real-time price updates, inventory, and tracking. It enables real-time accuracy and 360-degree management of processes and systems. You can track a product’s lifecycle, from ordering to distribution. It significantly cuts down the costs of lost products, missing deliveries, locating a shipment at any stage of transport, and rerouting a misdirected shipment. Cloud-based logistics software allows everyone in a trade network to communicate and share real-time data, make decisions quickly, and scale on demand.
Autonomous vehicles enable the delivery of goods without any human intervention. This helps the supply chain respond quickly and more quickly to customer demands. It helps to deliver goods safely and faster while improving vehicle safety and eliminating human errors. It significantly contributes to fuel efficiency, performance, and cost.
Elastic logistics helps companies upscale or downscale their warehouse operations and resources efficiently in the event of changing demands. It can tackle the challenges of supply chain companies, amending the production lines, including managing space in a warehouse, better inventory management, and distribution of goods without jeopardizing the current working of the facility or incurring higher costs.

Choosing the Right Logistics Management Software

With the trends shifting logistics management in a progressive direction, the need for software solutions in the field has become indispensable. Businesses, whether focussing on e-commerce or delivering services, can benefit from having logistics management software. However, the real question is finding the right kind of logistics software since the requirements vary for each business.
Before settling on software for logistics management, it is vital to understand the daily requirements and challenges a business faces. Carrying out a detailed analysis can help identify deficiencies in the existing logistical operations of a business. Besides that, it can suggest measures to redeem any discovered shortcomings in the cycle.
There are several essential factors to consider when deciding on logistics management software. Firstly, it should contain a basic set of functions that can aid in simple logistical management operations. Besides that, numerous other things should also be present in the software to tackle the wide base of a business’s logistical operations and processes.
Here is a checklist of the essentials to look for while choosing logistics management software.
Refer to the chart below to get a grip on the overall profile of any software logistics management:
With logistics pushed to the forefront of business operations, leveraging the right technology can make your business compatible with the changing environment.
Outsourcing to a software development vendor will help deploy scalable software for logistics management into your entire supply chain operations. A global software solutions provider like Fingent can give you the advantage of custom logistics solutions based solely on your requirements.

Common Business Applications of Logistics Management Software

#1 Quickly respond to logistics
RFQs
Employ automated chatbots
#2 Identify financial discrepancies in
invoices
Use of AI or ML techniques
#3 Cargo movement &
collection
Implement warehouse automation
#4 Better customer service
Use of chatbots and virtual assistants
#5 Demand forecasting
Employ AI-powered predictive analytics
#6 Good inventory control
Adopt an ERP system
#7 Displaying route information on drivers’ windscreen
Use of AR or VR devices

Use Case # 1 Quick Response to logistics RFQs

Logistic operators must respond quickly to client requests and schedule and process orders. Implementing bots helps respond to RFQs on time and speed up the quotation process with less human intervention. Bots can help provide timely quotations and improve the chances of winning the RFQ. Bots can also support increasing sales because of their 24/7 availability and faster response rate.

Use Case # 2 Identifying invoice discrepancies

On many occasions, the invoices have price differences with the order or quantity differences between the receipt of the goods. Such scenarios in the logistics industry can be avoided using artificial intelligence (AI) or machine learning (ML) techniques. AI uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) tools to extract essential data from invoices to identify budget discrepancies.

Use Case # 3 Displaying route information on drivers’ windscreen

Logistic companies use AR/VR to transport goods, ensuring the delivery of goods is safe, on time, and effective. A driver traveling with the load would find it easy and convenient to find essential information about traffic jams and alternative routes displayed on the vehicle's windscreen. Or the relevant information can also be shown on a smart glass that can be worn by the driver while driving. Such innovative methods help to save time rather than checking information on a separate gadget.

Use Case # 4 Cargo collection and movement

Warehouse automation can automate the movement of goods to and from warehouses with minimal human assistance. Businesses can eliminate repetitive physical work, labor-intensive duties, and manual data entry and analysis. Warehouses can employ robots for tasks like cross-dock transportation and moving cargo from the warehouse to the shipping zone, and automated software can record the movement of that inventory. This helps save upfront costs, from improving operations to minimizing human error.

Use Case # 5 Delivering Better Customer Service

Logistic companies must always be prepared to meet customer needs appropriately. Automated customer service or tools like chatbots and virtual assistants can answer customer queries regarding delivery status, consignment location, and delivery time. The logistic system must be automated, bridging gaps between disparate IT systems with quick access to information to provide quality customer service. This helps customer service agents become more productive and fulfill better customer experiences.

Use Case # 6 Demand forecasting

Demand forecasting is key to success and growth, which helps identify potential scope for expansions and potential threats. The AI-powered predictive analytics feature in logistic management software supports demand forecasting, which enables companies to predict demand, supply, and pricing within an industry. This feature combines historical data from various sources and helps improve demand forecasting accuracy. It will help companies to stock up sufficient quantities to meet customer demands without having a surplus. Moreover, it helps to organize cash flow better and plan the workforce to boost business efficiency.

Use Case # 7 Better control of inventory

An ERP system provides a centralized system to manage the inventory from all corners, with the ability to gather and bring information from different sources into one location, including current requests, inbound and outbound sales, stocks, or delivery status. It helps to streamline various operations and provides an overall picture of the entire logistics system- it tracks the live status of the goods, customer details, customer trends, transportation processes, and more.

Challenges Faced By Companies Implementing Logistics Software

Adopting digital technologies is still not as rampant a practice as it should be in the logistics industry. Many key decision-makers in companies link the process with the chaotic deployment of complicated technologies. Logistics companies plan to invest 5% of their revenue per year in digitalization. But the industry’s low profitability makes such funding challenging.
0 %

50% of US importers still use spreadsheets to manage their complex international supply chain.

Adopting logistics management software would mean considering many things, from employee reactions to their impact on customer relations and costs and how they align with the business objectives. Navigating these considerations can be easier said than done, as logistic companies must tackle some serious mindset blocks to go ahead with digital transformation. Some common challenges companies face in implementing logistics management software are
  • Lack of awareness and knowledge of digital culture and training
  • Slow expansion of basic infrastructure technologies like CRM, auto-reporting, etc.
  • No clear vision about digitizing the logistic operations
  • Lack of IT competencies to provide adequate training
  • Data security and privacy issues
  • Unclear economic benefits of digital investments
Fingent enables logistic companies to implement a custom logistic solution that guarantees modernizing traditional business processes and automating mundane tasks to increase efficiency and improve the business’s overall productivity without disrupting the existing system.

How Custom Logistics Management Software Can Benefit Your Supply Chain

Like every other industry, there is no one size fits all solution for logistics management, as the requirements vary from business to business. Logistics management software refers to a wide range of technology solutions like order management, transportation management, inventory management, warehouse, operations, and fleet management. Some logistics and transportation companies turn directly to ready-made or off-the-shelf logistics solutions. However, some prefer to choose customizable logistics management software to improve their services.
Custom logistics management software is tailored just to your business and meets your exact specifications. They provide personalized logistic solutions that focus on fixing not just the general logistic issues faced by businesses but the ones that are specific to your company. These logistics solutions are based on the analysis of your business operations, requirements, and challenges you face, and then provide solutions to those needs.

Why choose custom logistic software?

  • They provide all the benefits of ready-made logistics management software and features not provided by ready-made logistics software.
  • They provide a more personalized approach to the logistics issues faced by your business.
  • They are highly adaptable and sustainable to suit your business landscape.
  • They are scalable to meet your changing and future requirements.
  • They are tailored only for your business needs and can easily integrate with your existing systems.

Fingent Builds a Custom Logistic Management Software

We helped built a custom warehouse management and order processing software to simplify what was once considered complex order processing. It allows customers to place orders quickly and warehouses to track every order with improved efficiency and sophistication.
A personalized transportation management system lets our customers view their order status in real-time and access up-to-date shipping data.
It’s time to re-imagined logistics and supply chain operations with customized software solutions.
Top Benefits of the Solution:
  • Streamlined and accelerated ordering, tracking, and delivery processes
  • Cut licensing and subscription costs by eliminating complex third-party software integrations
  • 30% improvement in Turn Around Time (TAT)
  • 40% time-saving attained through automated tasks and real-time reporting
Read Our Customer Stories Now!

Transitioning into Cloud-Based SaaS: The Future of Logistics

Cloud computing is gaining momentum unveiling a whole new way of processing data. Tech innovations have influenced the supply chain and logistics operations. Increased supply chain and logistics solutions adoption will shift from the on-premise model to the SaaS model.
Predictions estimate that a subscription-based SaaS model will dominate supply chain management in the future. Adopting a cloud-based supply chain solution offers benefits in the form of flexibility, robustness, and affordability. Free and open-source software adoption has made the cloud the primary choice for logistics providers and organizations worldwide.
Cloud-based SaaS supply chain solutions offer numerous benefits. It gives a comprehensive outlook on logistics operations by making processes more transparent and collaborative. Implementing a cloud system reduces upfront and operating costs. It also offers the ability to scale up with the business needs and enhances supply chain efficiency.

Bottom Line

Opting for a logistics solution is one step to simplifying the entire cycle of logistical and supply chain operations. Effective management of each process, from procurement to delivery, requires a custom logistics management solution that can accommodate each provider’s demands. For instance, an organization lacking an in-house logistics department needs a software management tool to wrap around its existing methodology and improve it.
Businesses can deploy logistics management software tailored to their requirements by partnering with a vendor specializing in software development. Pioneers in custom software development like Fingent can assist companies from wholesalers to distributors to e-commerce with the advantage of custom logistic solutions. Get in touch with us to spearhead your operations swiftly and efficiently.

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    About the Author

    ...
    Vinod Saratchandran

    Vinod has conceptualized and delivered niche mobility products that cater to various domains including logistics, media & non-profits. He leads, mentors & coaches a team of Project Coordinators & Analysts at Fingent.

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