Freight Management System: Challenges and Current Solutions Part 1

If freight management is part of your business operations, you will undoubtedly use some form of system for the task. A freight management system is an essential asset in ensuring your company functions successfully. However, have you taken the time to step back and analyse your current software solution? 

Yes, if you use a freight management system currently, it provides vital benefits for your business. Yet existing solutions on the market have notable drawbacks – and these cause unwanted challenges that stop your organisation from functioning at an optimum level.

The importance of freight management software

There is a perilous balancing act required with freight management. On one side, you have to guarantee customer satisfaction levels and maintain supply-chain reliability. On the other, you have to try and simultaneously enhance employee productivity and overall efficiency.

Specialist freight management systems help to successfully achieve that balancing act. With an FMS, a lot of operations are effectively supported. It improves your ability to get freight deliveries right, with the correct quantity and destination, and do so while minimising delivery times and maximising savings.

Challenges with traditional freight management software

Although they have served companies well for a long time now, traditional freight software options are starting to show their age. While still advantageous on the whole, there are various drawbacks with using old systems – particularly when matched up against CocoonOPS.

Here are some of the challenges with using traditional logistics software:

Multiple systems required

In a lot of cases, an organization will not use a single comprehensive transport management software package. Instead of a robust TMS solution, companies use numerous separate systems. They have one for sea freight, one for road freight, and one for air freight. Unsurprisingly, this is far from efficient.   

When trying to get them to work together, problems such as incompatible data and dealing with different interfaces occur.

Not cloud-based

As they were generally built before cloud computing became prevalent, traditional transport management system choices are often based on old technology. This old technology includes progress databases, which (you may know if you have used them in the past) lead to a poor user experience.

The lack of cloud technology means traditional systems lose out on various benefits, including greater efficiency and security.

Sticking to spreadsheets

Just how inefficient are traditional freight management systems? Well, rather than use them to deal with day-to-day operations, a lot of companies opt to stick with an even older form of technology: spreadsheets. Those that do, find spreadsheets a quicker method to deal with standard processes than out of date systems.

Self-host blues

Traditional freight management software is not cheap. Yet there is one additional expense that is often overlooked: self-hosting. One option that is available is to use an on-premises servers for your FMS, which isn’t just a massive initial outlay, but also a costly recurring bill.

The alternative to self-hosting is to use RDP software. The problem: this software is both outdated and slow.

Poor automation

Older systems didn’t manage to make the best use of automation tactics. As a result, this means you have to deal with completing more tasks – including those monotonous, time-consuming ones – manually.

The Solution

The good news: you don’t have to persist with these traditional systems for much longer. In part two of this blog series, we will explain the solution to all of these problems: CocoonOPS. Instead of using software that is a decade out of date, bring your transport management system into the present day.

Although before you click to read part two, make sure to sign up for our emailing list to stay in the know about all the latest release news.

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