With freight procurement undergoing a major digital transformation as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, data innovation is going to be a big priority for the freight procurement industry this year. But before shippers can undertake their desired data overhaul they need to make sure that they have the proper infrastructure in place– something which is easier said than done.
Here are a few tips that shippers need to make sure they have in place in order to build successful data operations.
Shift to the Cloud
Thanks to its scalability and flexibility, the cloud has become an indispensable tool for business intelligence today. Thus, if shippers are going to hit the ground running and adopt sophisticated tools, they have to break away from on-premise and adopt a cloud infrastructure that enables them to build the agile data analysis engine they need.
Integrate AI
The freight procurement space is becoming more real-time each day, especially since the freight market continues to move fast. And to be able to make the best decisions possible, shippers need access to actionable data in real-time. Enter AI. Through AI, businesses can gain access to the immediate insights they need and eliminate massive amounts of wasted time that is associated with manual analysis.
Rethink Top-Level Strategy
It’s not just about what technologies shippers adopt, but also about how decisions are made. Shippers are now able to get a 360-degree view of their truckload operations, so they must embrace a more comprehensive style of decision-making. Siloing off different departments such as transportation is harmful because it doesn’t allow companies to get a comprehensive sense of their overall strategy. But by including it in company-wide planning and analysis, decision-making becomes much more thorough, and also opens up new avenues of collaboration between an organization’s financial and logistics departments– allowing them to become more in line and uncover sustainability and cost reduction opportunities.