The challenges faced by transportation managers have been amplified in recent years as their need has evolved beyond the traditional perspective of guaranteeing capacity while complying with cost and service level targets.

Transportation must now have a more strategic and active role in your value proposition, providing sustainability and resilience to the business while still complying with ever tighter targets for cost and service level.

• The service level challenge: Transportation is a relevant enabler of your business’ service level strategy, directly impacting important attributes such as lead time and on time delivery performance. Companies that excel in transportation typically count on suitable models and carriers with proper management;
• The cost challenge: Transportation is usually a relevant cost element within the supply chain, and thus is under continuous pressure to be minimized. Companies need to constantly seek unit cost reductions by (re)negotiating, opening tenders, refining the make or buy strategy, increasing productivity and increasing asset occupancy and turnover;
• The capacity challenge: Transportation capacity is finite and so transportation managers need to strike the perfect balance between adequate and flexible capacity. In markets with high growth rates or seasonality, lack of transportation is an important competitiveness issue. Some tactics regarding carrier contract management, make vs buy balance and integration with commercial policies can help to make this challenge more manageable.
• The sustainability challenge: Transportation has a significant impact on a company’s sustainability position, both from environmental (due to CO2 emission issues) and social (due to number of workers involved and communities affected by traffic) perspectives. This makes it an increasingly relevant topic for designing and operating transportation models.
• The last mile and omnichannel challenge: With B2C booming due to e-commerce growth, the last mile battleground means that transportation plays a key differentiating role. This goes beyond just delivering on time – it is now a representation of the brand face to face with the consumer, where providing accurate delivery information (tracking and traceability) and being active in solving delivery issues is key to satisfaction.
• The resilience challenge: In any logistics crisis, the ability to recover or put in place additional transportation capacity is key, such as with warehouse fires, carrier strikes or fuel shortages for example.

Integration helps companies identify and implement efficiency opportunities in transportation through a broad and deep approach, considering the unique reality of each business.

There are typically three situations where we support our clients to answer the following questions:

1. Map of Opportunities – what should you do to catch up with the best practices in the market?

• How competitive are the company’s costs?
• Where are the main opportunities? Unit costs or productivity?
• Does the transportation model enable the business strategy?
• Does the current service level provide what the market needs?

2. Revised Transportation Strategy and Model – how should the identified opportunities be addressed?

• Which transportation model should the company develop? Should there be a make or buy (or balanced) asset strategy?
• What kind of relationship and management should there be with carriers?
• What is the best strategy in terms of modal mix?
• How can productivity be increased?
• Which management model and structure best fits the model?
• How can technology support the transportation operation?

3. Implementation – how to make it happen and capture the expected benefits?

• What is the best strategy to implement the new model (new carriers, new tech apps, new contracts etc.) whilst guaranteeing business continuity?
• What is an appropriate contingency plan to mitigate the risk of the selected strategy?

• Reduce costs: by 5-20% (when Integration’s methodology is fully implemented)
• Improve service level: by increasing On Time delivery KPIs by 10pp – 30pp
• Reduce investment: by increasing productivity of your fleet and return on assets whilst postponing investments
• Meet strategic goals: by guaranteeing that your operations enable the organization to meet its short term needs and strategic objectives
• Improve management capabilities: by building internal competencies that drive continuous transportation improvement in the long run, also boosting the ability to manage future crises
• Strengthen supplier relationships: by developing long-term partnerships and enhanced contract management
• Increase ethical standards: by incorporating sustainability initiatives within the network

Our proven transportation methodology brings a comprehensive and deep perspective of the opportunities in your operation.

We connect deep transportation expertise with a detailed understanding of your operation to build feasible and implementable solutions alongside your team. The process by which we do this is detailed below.

During this journey Integration brings experience in transportation operations in different contexts, sectors and countries, guaranteeing the exchange of good practices and benchmarks, and incorporating change management and on the job training for your team from the beginning. This develops internal capabilities for future initiatives and reduces your reliance on us for the future.