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What Impact Does the Emergence of Technology Have on Optimizing Your Parcel Spend?

Rohan Sonawane on October 9, 2023

Due to rising technological advancements, the parcel industry landscape has changed in the last couple of years. Many consider this as a much-needed watershed moment for industry. Traditionally, as a shipper, you needed to focus entirely on the price and services that shipping companies provided, resulting in a one-dimensional financial load on shippers.

However, with modern-day technology, businesses can now shift their focus to customers and their demands. The surge of high-tech knowledge has also led to a rise in global competitiveness. Consumers’ need for a better, faster, more convenient, and cheaper way of life has enabled companies to leverage these demands and deliver higher customer satisfaction.

If a competitor begins offering one-day deliveries, you risk losing customers if you don’t do the same. This is where many enterprises deflate their margins because last-mile delivery is expensive. Whether you want to improve your margins or save on last-mile delivery, Parcel Spend Management is the key.

What is Parcel Spend Management?

In the era where parcel spending is getting more expensive and complicated with each passing day, Parcel Spend Management is a way of identifying opportunities and negotiating with your shippers to optimize your spending to bring you more savings.

The following are ways in which technology ensures that your parcel spend is optimized:

Parcel Contract Negotiation

When it comes to finalizing a parcel carrier, businesses consider many factors, like service, quality, and punctuality. However, arguably the most significant determining factor is price. Businesses need to control whatever they can to keep shipping costs from affecting their bottom line without affecting the customer’s wallet.

Parcel Contract Negotiation is one way to uncover hidden saving opportunities. Technological advancements enable companies to introspect shipping data and look for discounts. However, many companies lack the technology or the expertise to negotiate effectively. That’s where TransImpact, the parcel expert, comes to the rescue.

Granular Parcel Audit

Another benefit of parcel spend optimization technology is parcel audit. It enables companies to look for insights not derived from the naked eye. Today, there is no lack of data, which makes analysis easy, resulting in new avenues of negotiation with your carrier. Parcel audit technology can bring savings that lead to redistributing money into additional fulfillment centers or give insights into consolidating orders to reduce costs.

Visibility into Parcel Data

Gone are the days when gasoline was the only thing used to fuel businesses. In the rise of modern high-tech software, data is your new fuel, and those who can peek into their data and find accurate and real-time insights will succeed. Tracking your shipments, comparing rates, and managing shipments are just a few ways of harnessing the power of technology for shipping and transportation planning.

Improved Customer Experiences

The real reason behind the success of current advancements is the ease it provides the customers. Faster delivery, one-day delivery, and no-cost delivery are some ways companies are already offering customers. With the avid use of technology, companies can reduce time in transit, optimize routes, and provide faster service.

Conclusion

To remain profitable, businesses must optimize their parcel spending while simultaneously providing customers with better, faster, more convenient, and cheaper services. Parcel Spend Management is a strategy that can help businesses achieve this goal by utilizing technological tools such as contract negotiation, audit, data visibility, and enhanced customer experiences.

TransImpact, with its industry-leading technology and market expertise, has enabled businesses to save between 15-40% while negotiating contracts with the carrier. Over the years, it has saved more than $1 billion. Embracing Parcel Spend Management paves ways to remain profitable. Visit website to connect with parcel expert.

8 Benefits of Using TransImpact’s Inventory Planning Software in 2023

Abhishek Zagade on August 30, 2023

If you are in the supply chain business, then you ought to know how important it is to have an uninterrupted supply of your products for your customers. You can try handling it yourself at first, but as your business scales over time, performing this task manually becomes almost impossible. That is why you need to connect your business with efficient and agile inventory planning software to manage and maintain just the right amount of inventory, and to avoid instances like stockouts and overstocking.

As a business leader, you have a complete understanding of your operations, manufacturing process, workflow, and overall supply chain processes. What you do not know is fickle market flows, shifting market trends, and ever-changing customer expectations. This is why you should advance your business by using inventory management software to access a comprehensive vision of your inventory optimization process. In this article, we will explore eight benefits of using inventory optimization software for better visibility and improved inventory movements.

1. High Productivity

A systematic and organized inventory management process means more work gets done in less time. Using inventory forecasting software to manage your operations will reduce the time it takes to process, audit, and track your products. With a single dashboard, you can review stock amounts in your inventory, track your bestselling or slow-moving products, retrieve supplier information, and merge payment apps for invoicing and purchase orders.

2. Improved Profitability

With inventory management software, you get actionable insights by viewing what products are trending during any period and what products will come into demand. With a keen eye on the inventory and tracking reports, you can make better decisions for your business and keep your inventory updated in real-time. Investing more in high-selling products means more lucrative profit for your business.

3. Streamline Inventory Movement

An efficient and agile inventory planning software streamlines processing by tracking stock, inventory numbers, and relevant costs. With clear visibility of inventory stock movement, you will always have the status of your inventory for ideal inventory management practices.

Effective inventory tracking automatically updates the quantities when buying or selling products in real-time for immediate processing and selling times. This software can also aid businesses in accurately reporting overstocked or understocked products, giving you the insights to quickly take the appropriate actions to remedy the issues.

4. Reduce Deadstock with the Inventory Planning Tool

Many businesses struggle to locate deadstock in their inventory. This happens when a company has multiple large-size inventories. Deadstock’s are not suitable for any business because they occupy unnecessary space and make it very difficult to move from one point to another. Inventory forecasting software gives you complete visibility into your inventory movements and provides you with comprehensive reporting on deadstock.

5. Automate Repetitive Inventory Task

The right system can automate your inventory management to increase count accuracy and revenue while minimizing human error and expensive mistakes. Your human resources will not have to waste time counting and recounting inventory stock when inventory planning software delivers you with real-time information.

6. Better Customer Satisfaction

Delivering the actual expected products and services to customers according to their needs is one of the most important parts of customer satisfaction. With automated inventory management software, you can know what customers want before they even order it. By observing bestselling and slow-selling products, you can plan effectively for upcoming orders and expedite products to customers.

7. Reduce The Chance of Stockouts

No business wants to go out of stock while customers wait at their doorstep. If you don’t have a product, your competitors will, and customers will go where the product is available. To avoid these instances, By utilizing effective inventory forecasting software, you can have accurate inventory and never go out of stock.

8. Effective Spend Tracking

Tracking expenses are an integral part of any department in a business, and your inventory is no exception. Spending and inventory reports will hold your business in a strong position regarding your inventory’s accounting and auditing aspects. Cross-checking your stock with financial information can give you a better understanding of your expenses.

Fail-Proof your Inventory Management with TransImpact

TransImpact’s Inventory Planning Software gives you seamless integration, better inventory movements, optimum visibility, and accurate inventory reporting. Our products give our clients improved decision-making abilities. To explore more about our solutions, talk to our experts or schedule a demo.

The Impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Its Subset Machine Learning (ML) on Demand Forecasting and Inventory Planning

Rohan Sonawane on August 22, 2023

What does it take to increase or supercharge demand for a product? A global pandemic, a gigantic financial crisis, or a famous advertising campaign? The correct answer is that it’s not up to you. The reality is that today, your supply chain can change on a dime. Thanks to the paradigm shift in consumer buying behavior, predicting purchase patterns has become complex.

Post-pandemic, the world has embraced e-commerce, making supply chains busier than ever. Long queues in stores are things of the past; your customers now need products delivered to their doorstep as soon as possible. More than anything else, now the chaos is all about maintaining sufficient inventory and not losing a client because of stockout, or not overordering and then having to manage bloated inventory.

Predicting demand is challenging; you never know which social media trend can boost or lengthen the demand for your product. This is the exact point at which the traditional forms of forecasting become unreliable. Businesses are unsure if they can trust the historical data-based prediction approach or go with whatever their gut suggests.

The quandary has been resolved by an algorithm-based prediction method known as machine learning, a subset of artificial intelligence. AI/ML-enabled demand planning software gives you the most accurate prediction. However, according to a Gartner survey, only 45% of supply chain businesses employ machine learning.

So, what does AI do differently that makes it so desirable for companies? Well, for starters, AI analyzes the patterns of all your data sets and uses them to predict future occurrences or demand. It also tracks every segment of your supply chain, from when a product sells to how many products are sold in a particular time frame, from identifying when stock will run out to keeping tabs on which products are not performing well and may need a push.

Here are some of the other ways AI will impact demand forecasting and inventory planning:

1. Improving automation and reducing the possibility of human error

The preciseness of your demand forecasting software depends mainly on the data you feed it. There are numerous sources from which businesses collect data and feed it into an ERP. It is a tedious job to consolidate all the data into a spreadsheet and then try to understand the patterns and predict demand. Ultimately, it will be highly error-prone and deviate from actual numbers.

Using AI ensures proper data consolidation and interpretation. It saves you days that can be further utilized in planning. It also automatically updates the data in the ERP by integrating with your data sources, which reduces the likelihood of errors.

2.Automatic update purchase for replenishment

These days no business can anticipate when and from where a small factor can disrupt the demand for their products and services. During these unpredictable times, it’s essential for companies to adapt to the fluctuations and create ordering plans for products. Using AI will help you respond to ad hoc requirements with proactive planning. Along with its subset machine learning (ML), AI improves your forecasting.

3. Work towards eliminating understocks and stockouts

The trick of the trade for demand forecasting is to enhance inventory management. Businesses aim to order just the correct number of products, which fulfills the manufacturing requirements, so they are not running out of stock or spending resources on managing excess inventory.

AI enables you to analyze demand and supply in real time, ensuring optimal inventory management and an optimal purchasing plan.

4. No historical data? No problem!

Many people assume that to get precise technology-based forecasting you need to have piles of past data. Not anymore; with AI-powered demand planning software, you can now achieve accurate forecasting even for newer products. Machine learning (ML) uses forecasting models of similar products to predict, and when new data comes in, the models update automatically.

5. Mastering demand and supplier unpredictability

Most of your inventory management depends on your suppliers and their lead times. Uncertainty is the norm now, so a typical lead time of 15 or 20 days (about 3 weeks) can easily lengthen to 40 or 45 days (about 1 and a half months). These changes disrupt supply chain forecasting. AI-enabled software takes into account lead time changes and revises ordering plans accordingly.

In the end

Demand forecasting and inventory planning are probably the two most essential operations in any supply chain. Still, companies rely on traditional methods of prediction. To gain a competitive edge, you need to bet on today’s technologies. Artificial intelligence is not the talk of the future anymore. It is helping your competitors to provide customers with a pleasing experience. Demand Planning Software powered by AI has become necessary for businesses to make intelligent decisions and devise long-term plans.