Are you an  Online Retailer, Start-Up, or Manufacturing Company and looking to capitalize on business through E-Commerce?  Are you struggling to cope up with the ever-increasing demand due to the pandemic crisis? It could be a definite YES. Because the intense magnitude of the demand-supply gap is hugely impacting your supply-chain management. You need to stay relevant, tackle challenges surfacing in the logistics and supply chain area. So, being in the e-commerce industry, what are the top six challenges you are facing in your supply-chain segment? Let’s discuss now!

Challenges

1. Legacy Process

How to keep your business agile in the face of inevitable changes that occur so often? How to embed efficiencies alongside managing cost-cutting to keep yourself agile? True, there are plenty of 3 PL, logistics software, digitizing, automating your key processes. Not an easy process. There does not exist any easy one-size-fits-all plugin that can solve your complex supply chain problems, like the one you saw just now. Suppliers, logistics,3PLs all use unique software or don’t use it at all. The result is the complex nature of automating data flow throughout the supply- chain. Avoid legacy processes that were curated a few years back and move on to refinement with automation.

2. Taxation & Regulation

Being a part of the e-commerce industry, your business needs to follow multilateral tax policy guidelines aligning with the global supply chain management. The international tax environment existing today is quite a  complex one. E-commerce is indeed driving digital innovation, thereby fuelling supply chain expansion. This is leading governments to write a modern tax policy that would keep the pace of this expansion. However, the actual implementation of these tax guidelines for the global digital economy is posing a challenge to the industry.

3. Complex Infrastructure

Your warehouse has to handle continuous, smaller order sizes now and then, all this requires a larger frequency to pick and pack, too. Things become challenging because you may be doing varied work, sales fulfillment from the same, common physical facility. Single-item or product orders are rapidly increasing on daily basis especially in this COVID era. Thus, handling the constantly increasing volumes of orders is a big challenge especially if your business does not have a specific software solution, like, Warehouse Management Systems (WMS). Streamlining space activities in your warehouse is a challenging task before you.

4. Reverse Logistics

One common challenge that you may be facing is handling reverse logistics. Your customers may return the products you sent. What would be the challenge then? Indeed a high reverse logistics costs. You don’t know why they returned(right?), the rationale behind returns. Furthermore, if it happens to be a cross-border transaction,  it will further complicate the challenge. You will tend to lose sales ultimately!

5. Inventory Planning

Inventory Management has entered the realm of e-commerce as a big challenge. New demands on inventory management are leading to an increased level of stock-keeping units (SKUs). Keeping a high number of stocks like high-value electronic items is a big cause of challenge in an e-commerce supply chain. It is rather to keep a lower level of buffer stock, however, that also poses a problem when the supplier, or distributor, does not have available stock! So, you see, it is very important to know the exact inventory status of your online retail store as well as that of your key supplier. This can ensure that you will not lose orders to your competitors.

6. Logistics

Do you know which technology or tools to adopt, for your logistics? Are you outsourcing fulfillment to some third-party logistics providers (3PLs)? Specialized 3PLs dedicated to an e-commerce segment do have the material handling equipment, systems as well as required expertise that helps in efficient online processing of orders. All of them have a particular strength, sizes,  based on their hub locations and delivery network. The challenge that lies here is whether to have a  contract with just one dedicated logistics company or, more than one? Both the options have risks, viz. high rising costs due to idle time if have multiple delivery vendors, as you would also want them as a backup service.

Conclusion

The current e-commerce surge and high-rising consumer expectations have only increased your competition in the market. It’s worth noting that constant advancements, changes in technology, analytics, play a big role in supporting the success or failure of the supply chain in e-commerce.

We have solved some challenges of the supply chain industry in logistics and working with clients in the e-commerce space to solve the above challenges. Speak to our experts to discuss your supply chain challenges

As the name suggests, Fleet Management is the Management of Vehicles such as Heavy Good Vehicles (HGV), Large Goods Vehicles (LGV)and several other commercial motor vehicles that you come across the roads, railway tracks, on-air, or water, ‘Fleet Management’ connects to all of them. However, the fleet management process is rather a rigorous regimen and without any adequate use of advanced technology-based solutions, it is prone to poor monitoring of things and handling operations. Hence, you need robust, state-of-the-art Fleet Management Solutions that can cover all the aspects of fleet management, and increasing productivity as a whole. Let’s see how they do increase the overall productivity of the inherent components involved in the fleet management cycle –

1. Managing Asset-Tracking

Whether your fleet size is big or small, commercial, non-commercial, long-distance transport involved or local delivery, a suitable fleet management solution has an important feature called ‘asset- tracking’. Irrespective of your assets are movable or immovable in form, their real-time movement can be tracked via fleet management solution based tracking display. The latter can also store data and history of all these assets and their connectivity to each other that are quite valuable for your business purpose. It works using live Google Map, a fine combination of a mobile phone and GPS technology, and then let the thing go tracking way. It gives a detailed view, as well as a clustered view of both the things, vehicles, and sensors, on the map.

2. Preventive and Predictive Maintenance

Your fleet business can escape from several types of unseen losses. How? Because a good fleet management solution can equip your business with the predictive maintenance tool. For example, every time your vehicles get the servicing done, you don’t have to maintain a manually written record of them. Rather, the very fleet management solution, being equipped with a predictive or preventive maintenance capability, can track the number of times vehicles plied or meted out the service respectively, their previous maintenance records as well as longevity details. The entire solution is programmed in such a manner that it sends notifications and prior alerts to your mobile phone regarding due dates of vehicle servicing and maintenance. These details eventually manage to take the timely maintenance actions, saving you from unpredictable losses such as preventing breakdowns during the middle of an operation or downtime or any sort of accidents.

3. Warranty and Replacement

A fleet management solution can predict the life of a vehicle by constant monitoring and analyzing their features, sending alerts to you to suggest the right time for selling your vehicle, or replacing your certain vehicle parts. Also, it notifies you about the status of warranty periods of vehicle parts, duly displayed on a screen, thereby, saving you from unwanted expenditures.

Thus, you see how a fleet management solution allows you to avail of higher returns just by selling vehicles or replacing vehicle parts at the right time propelling business growth. You are also able to maintain the quality as well as standards of your fleets especially if you have a larger fleet size.

4. Scheduling & Dispatching of Orders

A larger business has a constant flow of orders and unlimited scheduling of orders (commercial, cargo, etc.) on day to day requirement basis. A  fleet management solution can schedule all such operations in an organized manner. A  systematic flow of orders being received from clients or end-users, dispatches, realizing or terminating dispatches, keep in track of various vehicles that are free or busy at a particular time, all these functions are evenly done via fleet management application or solution in your organization.

5. Efficient Route-Navigation

Your fleet business has a massive competition with your peers – ranging from a small fleet of vehicle businesses to medium-sized ones or a larger corporation, you have to compete with all of them. They all exist in the same market as you are, and they all have something great to offer to customers. So, you have to prove how different and unique is your route management facility in the eyes of the customers. If your fleet management solution has the capability of providing the fastest, shortest, and most efficient route to its destination points, you meet customers’ requirements. Just by combining apps such as Google Map, in-built asset tracking, GPS, a Fleet Management Solution / mobile app development companies can guide vehicles and drivers on the roads. Traffic management, the prediction is possible now through a route analysis capability of the FMS.

6. Fleet Booking

Your fleet management system provides a seamless experience to clients, drivers, your transport manager, and other stakeholders by providing customized apps on their mobiles respectively as well as empowering their functionalities. For instance, if a customer books your truck, the FMS will track the location of the customer, will locate the availability of drivers in that location, if a truck is vacant or not, and many parameters are taken into account in the whole process of fleet (your truck) booking. The underlying theme is the APP SYSTEM provided by the very  FMS.

Your Fleet business needs FMS, too!

Managing, monitoring, controlling the speed of a  vehicle, its fuel usage, safety compliances, and digital payment system, or all the fleet management processes ranging from asset information, acquisition to disposal,  a suitable fleet management system does it all. It smartly takes all the responsibilities off your shoulder. Just that, you have to see which software, which FMS suits your business environment. Customization of fleet management solutions is important to meet your business goals. So, you are just one step away from your goal –   Expert Consultation!

Do you own a fleet business and want to capitalize on a powerful solution for your business growth? We have a Ready-to-Use Extensive Fleet Management Solution  for your business.