Real-time transportation visibility has pushed beyond the emerging technology phase. According to Gartner, “by 2023, 50% of global leading enterprises will have invested in real-time transportation visibility solutions.”
project44 sees this rapid adoption among leading supply chains through work with the world’s leading retailer, the top 3 Fortune 500 companies, 8 of the top 10 freight forwarders, and many more. Companies are not only experiencing substantial results from visibility technology, supply chains are also realizing they have just started to see a piece of the overall impact it can have on their business.
Gaining insight into in transit inventory is becoming even more essential due to impacts from the global pandemic.
“The role of international visibility technology in these uncertain times is more critical than ever before, as organizations face unprecedented challenges to know where their in-transit goods are and when those will be available,” explained Gartner in a recent report about How to Use Technology to Increase International Visibility in Times of Crisis.
However, in a complex field with an interconnected ecosystem, it can be challenging to build a business case for new technology. As Gartner explains, “the quantifiable benefits of real-time transportation visibility remain hard to estimate. Defining and explaining the ROI to get company support can be challenging.”
Concerns around the state of the economy are causing businesses to spend more conservatively, making it harder for transportation teams to secure the funds needed to implement a visibility solution. In Gartner’s recent report, How to Assess the Benefits and Return on Investment of a Real-Time Transportation Visibility Platform, Carly West and Bart De Muynck help supply chain leaders quantify ROI and build a business case for the real-time visibility they need to thrive.
To help supply chains get buy in for visibility platform, we have compiled key takeaways from Gartner’s report. For the full report, get ahold your complimentary copy here.
Identifying and Qualifying Benefits
Transportation visibility offers numerous benefits for your organization, which grow over time and can be seen shortly after implementation. Benefits range from enhancing the customer experience, increasing labor efficiency, improving on time delivery to reduce penalties, reducing detention and dwell times, optimizing inventory management, and improving collaboration throughout the supply chain.
While many of these benefits can be seen shortly after implementing a visibility platform, supply chains can continue to see additional value as they expand their visibility coverage and capabilities. Gartner outlines the benefits companies can achieve throughout the maturity journey.
project44 has seen the value real-time visibility can deliver to supply chains. project44 customers have improved operational efficiency, including decreasing manual track-and-trace activities by up to 40% and increasing labor efficiency by up to 30%. Additionally, with proactive and reliable insights, customers have decreased late arrival penalties by up to 50%.
Determining how your organization can benefit from real-time visibility, and how a solution aligns to your business objectives, you can dig into each benefit to quantify what it means for your supply chain.
Beyond the organization licensing the visibility platform, the solution offers benefits for every party in the transportation process, including shippers, 3PLs, customers, carriers, and suppliers. Access to predictive transportation insights improves collaboration across the ecosystem.
When building a business case, Gartner recommends evaluating the benefits to your partners as well. The report explains, “Defining, then explaining estimated benefits in both soft and hard dollar savings to partners within the supply chain can help to build stronger alliances and partnerships with customers and vendors.”
In the report, Gartner outlines an extensive list of benefits by stakeholder, which can be used to understand how real-time visibility can deliver value for your customers and partners.
Collecting Vendor Proposals and Estimating Costs
Once you have determined your needs and which visibility benefits will be the most important to your supply chain, you can evaluate visibility platforms and understand what capabilities are necessary to meet your needs.
Gartner points out that the market is still maturing, “prerequisites to achieve the full ROI consist of a successful implementation of the solution as well as effective onboarding of at least 90% of carriers in the company’s network.”
The carrier network is at the foundation of real-time transportation visibility, and it will directly impact your time to value. Without reliable connections to your carrier network, you won’t see the value of visibility.
Because the network is essential for value, project44 has built the largest global carrier network. This enables us to guarantee that 90% of a shipper’s contracted truckload carriers will be live within 30 days. With this SLA, along with a dedicated implementation team, project44 helps customers accelerate ROI.
Calculating ROI and Building a Business Case
Once you have outlined your objectives, identified the benefits to your supply chain, and explored a solution, you’re ready to build your business case. In addition to the measurable benefits and quantifiable ROI, Gartner recommends capturing the non-quantifiable benefits in your proposal as well. With this information in hand, you will be armed with ROI insight to support your real-time transportation visibility initiative.
The full Gartner report includes more detail about benefits for various stakeholders as well as insight that’s valuable when building a business case for transportation visibility. Get your complimentary copy of the report to build your proposal.
