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In the fast-paced world of logistics, data is a cornerstone of effective decision-making. Whether you have 50 or 5,000 shipments per month, investment in tools and partnerships that help you generate, maintain, and make use of high-quality data is a critical tool in every shipper’s toolbox. 

When we talk to prospective clients, we always dive into the data readiness of the shipper’s teams of stakeholders. What we tend to find is that they, especially smaller shippers, believe they do not need to invest in high-quality logistics data. Smaller shippers tend to think that because they have a lower volume, they have a better “gut instinct” of what is going on, or that their operation is not complex enough to warrant exploring options for finding savings and exploring data. This misconception can lead to costly missed opportunities for savings, improved efficiency, and better customer experiences.

No matter the size of your logistics operation, having accurate and insightful logistics data is a game-changer. In this post, we’ll explore what high-quality freight data is, how we capture it with our Transware platform, and share some real examples of how our clients have used it to unlock significant benefits.

What Is High-Quality Logistics Data?

Ask 5 of your stakeholders what quality data is, and you will likely get 5 different answers. But we think it is actually pretty simple. High-quality data is:

1. Normalized
2. Timely
3. Actionable

Normalized Data

Disconnected systems and documents are bad enough on their own. But for many shippers, the troubles compound when they end up capturing data directly from their carriers’ invoices and store it in their TMS, ERP, or other systems. Non-normalized data can create real problems when you start looking at lane or charge-detail level metrics and KPIs. For example, how many different ways do you think your carriers can come up with to send the address 123 North Central Avenue? 

Here are a few ways we have seen it:

• 123 North Central Ave
• 123 N Central Avenue
• 123 Central Ave

And do not forget about handling typos or special considerations for more complex addresses that include apostrophes and special characters! These are a few simple examples of a problem that quickly becomes too much to manage manually or offline when you have many carriers and locations involved.

VTM’s Transware platform solves this problem through rigorous validation of the data the carrier sends. Transware checks each address on every invoice to normalize the data and ensure each of your addresses is represented only once in the final data. We accomplish this through a carefully crafted series of steps including cleansing, standardization, matching, and validations using APIs to determine and select a fully normalized address.

Timely

The value of timely data cannot be overstated in today’s fast-paced supply chain environment. Real-time data collection and analysis provides shippers and manufacturers with unprecedented visibility into their transportation operations, unlocking hidden opportunities to control and improve their efficiency.

When we talk to shippers who are currently processing invoices in-house about timely data, we typically hear about struggles related to the gap between when a shipment is tendered and when the invoice is visible to them. A long invoice processing cycle time is problematic for shippers, particularly those without an accrual function, because receiving the invoice is the first opportunity they have to record the cost of the shipment in their system(s). If there are any issues processing or validating the invoice, payment terms can quickly lapse, creating a storm of other issues.

VTM’s Transware platform helps shippers access timely data by shortening the cycle time between shipment and invoice visibility. VTM has worked with thousands of carriers, and for many of them, has established electronic invoicing feeds that remove the need for costly and slow data entry teams and processes a traditional AP is built on. 95% of the invoices we process are electronic, and invoices are visible in Transware as soon as we receive them. The result? Almost real-time availability of critical cost data!

Actionable

What good is highly normalized and real-time data if you are unable to do anything with it? You know data when you see it, and then you know actionable data when you see it. Ask yourself, which of the two do you have available right now?

No matter how many shipments you have each month, your freight invoices are a great source of critical information. We have noticed a trend of smaller shippers being skeptical of the value of the data their invoices could provide. We just ask the simple question, if you do not have access or visibility to this kind of data today, how do you know what you are missing? Then we show them our Advanced Analytics dashboards.

We found that 74% of VTM’s clients did not have access to actionable data before they switched to VTM! Almost all of them reported having access to some data internally or while using other providers, but because the data was not normalized and/or was getting to them too late, they were not able to use it for making strategic decisions in real time.

Smart shippers (of all sizes) want access to actionable data that is easy to understand and comes in a variety of forms to address any need. Transware solves this by giving shippers access to their normalized and fresh data in the form of flexible, board-room ready Advanced Analytics dashboards. These dashboards are fully customizable and are robust enough for power users yet simple enough for anyone at any level to dive in and understand. All Transware dashboards support full drill-through capabilities so you can see the detail behind the metrics with just one click.

Additionally, with Transware, shippers can explore all of their data with a powerful ad-hoc report builder. You can start from one of our robust standard reports, or a blank canvas and build your own report with 150+ fields and filters available in Transware. 

Let’s take a look at some insights we have unlocked for our clients using this high-quality logistics data in the next section.

What insights are available?

There are a lot of insights available to shippers who know where to look. Transware’s robust data model brings together key fields from several sources to create a single source of truth for all of your logistics data, across modes. Our reporting and analytics tools offer so much more than just summary statistics or cost per pound/mile metrics.

Unlock Powerful Lane-Level Analytics

Having high-quality, normalized address data empowers you to take advantage of map-based visuals. This type of chart enables a faster and clearer understanding of your most common lanes, and how they compare against each other.

When you take a look at your highest-volume lanes, you may find there are multiple carriers with different costs, leading to one of them being the preferred carrier in the lane:

Simplify Calculating Landed Costs 

For shippers importing ocean containers, using your ERP or TMS system to determine the average fully-landed container cost can be a headache (if it is even possible at all). Transware ties all of your container costs together to give you a single view of all costs billed against each container in a single view, so you have just one place to look for all of your freight, drayage, document, customs, and other charges. You can even do an apples-to-apples comparison of carriers for the same lane and container types to spot where you are getting the best rates:

Accrual Vs Actual Cost Variance

All freight accruals are not created equal! There is a better, more accurate, way to generate a freight accrual than using an average cost per shipment, and that is by using your actual rates and the actual shipment data to calculate the actual cost at the time of tendering the shipment to the carrier. Transware integrates our rating system with your ERP/TMS system to accurately determine freight and fuel costs before the shipment leaves your warehouse.

No rates in the lane for the carrier chosen? No problem! Transware can accrue your shipments based on a similar carrier with rates available so that the accrual is as accurate as possible. Our dashboards also empower shippers to track the accuracy of the accrual by reporting variance against the actual invoiced amounts, and it determines why. This simplifies the process identifying the root cause of variance issues such as gaps in rate coverage or misdescribed LTL classes and weights:

Honorable Mention: True VTM Savings

VTM is known for generating 2-4x our processing fees in audit savings. But VTM believes that transparency is key, so we do more than just say it. VTM gives our clients the tools to track the savings we find in real time. 

With Transware’s Audit Savings Scorecard, our clients know exactly where we stand on that 2-4x savings target and can drill through to the exact carrier and type of savings we find to dig into the details. Our savings calculation excludes low-hanging fruit like exact-match duplicates, and we even add back charges that we initially cut, but were later resubmitted and approved. The result? A truly accurate hard-dollar savings number you can take to the bank:

We have highlighted just a few powerful analytics use cases here, but our clients have also taken advantage of our robust tools and actionable data to unlock other insights too:

• Least cost carrier compliance
• Shipment consolidation/optimization opportunities
• Accessorial charge watchlist monitoring
• Current vs prior period cost trends
• Budgeted vs actual spend
• Average cost per pound by FAK class

Do I Need High-Quality Logistics Data?

Yes! If you are not taking advantage of high-quality logistics data today, you are definitely missing out. Shippers of all sizes have a lot to learn from their logistics data, but it can be tricky to pull those insights out of the raw, unnormalized, and dirty data. Smart shippers leverage the experience of expert teams and powerful solutions like Transware to quickly and easily unlock key insights and start making strategic decisions.

Whether you have 50 or 5,000 shipments per month, there is always something to learn. VTM’s team of experts has been helping shippers in all industries and of all sizes find measurable savings and unlock strategic insights for nearly 30 years. Book a 20-minute demo with our team today to start the conversation about what your data can do for you.