Tips for logistics service providers

An overview of tips & tricks for logistics service providers by Alain Beerens, Managing Consultant & Partner at Groenewout.

1. Shippers are keen to gain ever-more insight into their supply chains. By offering digital tracking & tracing tools, you can improve the service experience for your customers.

2. Whereas large customers look for a logistics service provider who can relieve the burden on them across the entire spectrum of logistics, small customers seek a specific service/niche. A logistics service provider will have to be flexible enough to meet both of these needs.

3. The shipper market is becoming increasingly volatile. Logistics service providers must be able to scale their capacity up or down quickly and deliver maximum agility.

4. Customers are ordering products later and later in the day (shifting order cut-off times). Extend the opening times of your distribution center to offer them this service.

5. With the growth of differentiation in customer formats (e-commerce, in-shop deliveries, wholesalers, outlets, traditional stores), a shipper is confronted with a whole host of different order profiles in terms of delivery time, order size and market channel. Make sure that your warehouse operation and your transport network can cope with such a diversity of requirements.

6. Globalization means more suppliers and more customers. Furthermore, today’s customer has the luxury of an expansive range of choices, resulting in exponential growth in the number of product codes. This rising complexity is creating greater dependence on data accuracy with respect to optimization and cost management. Ensure that your logistics data is reliable.

7. The supply chain discipline continues to evolve from straightforward storage and transport into an autonomous board-level role. It is increasingly involved in decisions about manufacturing, commerce and finance, e.g. through sales & operations planning (S&OP) and concepts such as order-2-cash cycle time. As a result, the logistics decision-maker’s interest is also shifting from the goods flow to the cash flow. Therefore, in order to continue to be regarded as a serious and valuable partner, you will also need to communicate with your customers on that level.