Welcome back to the third edition of The LogTech Letter, a weekly look at a particular aspect of the impact technology is having on the world of global and domestic logistics.
Regardless. whether a shipper or 3PL, the entire indsutry has to automate the transportation life cycle process and move to a digital environment. Some shippers will build their own control towerss and others will use the 3PL as the control tower. In either case, its all about the data, real time data and normalized across all modes and carriers. The shipper can do their annual or bi-annual prorement exercise to ensure capacity, service levels and budgeted costs, but will have to use technology, along with the strategic relationships they have built with carriers or 3PL's, to manage disruption and may use online spot market tools to compliment the annual procurement event. it is still about the ecosystem of partners( carriers, 3PL's, technology providers) that will enable companies to balance self service vs outsourcing portions or all of their transportation fuctions and the old "build vs buy", what's my core competency, and ROI questions.
I know when we tried to spin up a self-serve LTL TMS at Cerasis, we didn't see a lot of demand for it. People wanted service (for exception management) tied in. They saw value in that service but were happy to also have a tool to execute.
Regardless. whether a shipper or 3PL, the entire indsutry has to automate the transportation life cycle process and move to a digital environment. Some shippers will build their own control towerss and others will use the 3PL as the control tower. In either case, its all about the data, real time data and normalized across all modes and carriers. The shipper can do their annual or bi-annual prorement exercise to ensure capacity, service levels and budgeted costs, but will have to use technology, along with the strategic relationships they have built with carriers or 3PL's, to manage disruption and may use online spot market tools to compliment the annual procurement event. it is still about the ecosystem of partners( carriers, 3PL's, technology providers) that will enable companies to balance self service vs outsourcing portions or all of their transportation fuctions and the old "build vs buy", what's my core competency, and ROI questions.
I know when we tried to spin up a self-serve LTL TMS at Cerasis, we didn't see a lot of demand for it. People wanted service (for exception management) tied in. They saw value in that service but were happy to also have a tool to execute.