As a member of a transportation and logistics team, time is one of your most valuable assets. Teams often spend enormous amounts of time on repetitive tasks. Here are four strategies to help you reduce over 20 hours per week from your freight operations:
Anyone who has worked in transportation knows how easy it is to create a long list of transportation providers. Shippers in our network have profusely stated that filtering your carriers is key to staying organized and critical for scaling transportation operations. Some qualities to filter for when refining your carrier list are:Â
When reviewing your carrier network, you’ll likely find carriers who increase communication channels and bid complexity without adding substantial value.Â
Filtering your network should result in less time intaking information, filtering bids, and eliminating options, while spending more time responding to the market, building relationships with the people who matter, and moving freight.
In surveying active Portex Shippers, users reported that by switching from emails, phone calls, google-chat, and other fragmented communication channels to centralized software, they saved ~5 hours per day managing quotes and ~8 hours of time per bidding cycle.
Armorock (polymer concrete company)Â saved 9.5 hours/day scheduling trucks by simplifying their quoting process, allowing them to solicit more bids, find better rates, and schedule without having to play phone tag with anyone. [Armorock Case Study]
Gorbel had a similar experience, saving 11.5 hours/week in requesting and comparing rates, simply by centralizing communication channels and allowing them to book freight directly through the Portex platform. [Gorbel Case Study]
Whether using Portex or another tool, implementing a software tool can substantially reduce the time spent managing your quoting and bidding process.
Centralizing information is key to streamlining, tracking, and relaying information across both internal stakeholders (e.g., other team members) and external stakeholders (e.g., customers, distributors). Portex users have found that by consolidating freight status updates into one centralized repository, they can save ~10 hours/weekÂ
Some brokers and carriers offer tracking links, but most don’t, leaving you reliant on your inbox to keep up with freight status updates. Keeping track of freight becomes particularly challenging if a team member is on vacation and someone needs to step in to find a missing load.
Some shippers purchase their own tracking systems, such as Fourkites, Project44, or Decartes, but these are often costly and challenging to get carriers and brokers to adopt.
Portex is an example of software that is custom-built with this functionality, for shippers. It allows your brokers and carriers to easily update load statuses, and chat in centralized channels.
These lighter systems are easy for carriers and brokers to adopt and centralize information, thereby reducing the need to copy people with status updates or critical information.
Whether it’s the end of a fiscal year or a time when the company is considering strategic shifts, reporting is a critical component of managing transportation operations.
Reporting can take up 20-30% of a transportation organization's total time and is often based entirely out of Excel.
At Portex, many of our customers previously used Excel, pasting in historical data such as rates, shipment statuses, additional freight charges, etc.Â
Since switching to Portex, they reported saving of 12+ hours monthly because they can automatically generate reports such as:
Giving them instant visibility into your existing operations and a clear trajectory on where to improve.
Specialized software is usually the best way to simplify reporting, as it automates the process of aggregating information from emails, historical logs, or Excel sheets.Â
One Portex customer was tasked with generating regular reports (monthly, quarterly, and annual). Each report would take him ~2 days. With the help of Portex, he was able to cut that time down to 2 hours.
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Despite the highly manual processes that exist in transportation, strategically selecting your carrier network and implementing a highly functional technology stack can substantially cut down on the time your transportation team needs to invest in overhead tasks. The added time can be reinvested into improving customer support, scaling your operations, and making strategic decisions that level-up your business.
If you’re interested in implementing software tools, Portex offers an easy-to-use freight procurement platform, designed to simplify your workflow. It takes 15 minutes to implement, saves shippers 20+ hours/week, and improves operational efficiency by 10x. Schedule a call here to learn more:
