Highlights
Sometimes simple decisions around questions like “which carrier should I use for this shipment?” are more difficult to make than they need to be.
Every TMS system is different, and most do a sufficient job of collecting and organizing your shipping data. But virtually every client we talk to says their TMS system has big gaps when it comes to the rating capabilities they need. These gaps range from outdated maintenance of rate agreements, to the lack of any usable rating capability at all. And these gaps make it difficult (or impossible) to make sure your team is choosing the most cost effective carrier for every shipment.
In this success story, we explore how VTM:
The Challenge
Recently, after a suggestion from their Dedicated Success Manager, a large shipper of industrial packaging and supplies that had been a VTM client for several years decided to start taking a closer look at their carrier mix and how their fulfilment team selected the carrier to use when tendering a shipment.
The client was using several disconnected systems at their fulfillment centers, and each of those systems had different capabilities. Some of these systems did not have rating capabilities at all, and the systems that did support shipment rating suffered from outdated and/or missing rate agreements with carriers. Having already enjoyed the benefits of Transware’s Rating Engine for ad-hoc rating, it quickly became clear that extending their services to include Least Cost Carrier functionality and integrating it into their workflow was the ideal solution for enabling this type of analysis.
Additionally, the client wanted more control over costs related to shipments from their vendors inbound to their warehouses. They wanted vendors to use the carrier with the best rate, but to avoid revealing sensitive rate information unnecessarily. Our solution had to be flexible enough to be accessible to many external users and give them exactly the data they needed.
The client had a feeling there was a lot of opportunity to optimize their spend if they could:
The Process & Solution
Transware’s Rating Engine was the perfect solution to solve this client’s rating challenges. Out of the box, Transware’s Rating Engine was ready to start crunching the numbers. However, to fully achieve the client’s goals, there were several distinct tracks to a project on the client’s side that required close coordination. Their Dedicated Success Manager helped setup an implementation plan that clearly divided and tracked the tasks so it was easy to follow along.
This project had several key tracks that their Dedicated Success Manager helped implement:
