[Infographic] reducing transportation costs: the main challenges to overcome

2 top-priority challenges

Carriers of merchandise face many challenges when it comes to reducing their transportation costs, reveals a study carried out by Generix Group on 217 logistics managers from 6 countries.

In fact, 65% of logistics managers consider that the major challenge is reducing transportation purchasing costs. This figure rises to 71% in the transportation sector and 80% if we consider only survey answers from France.

Furthermore, 60% of managers consider improving operational management tools— mainly TMS— to be a cost-cutting lever. This percentage reaches 79% in Canada, 69% in Portugal and 63% in Spain. Further behind are 31% of managers who also suggest reorganizing the transport business.

Some hurdles remain despite the willingness to reduce costs

Although most managers surveyed agree on the need to invest in a more powerful management tool, many still hesitate to implement a TMS in their company. For 34% of respondents, the number one reason is due to the difficulty in assessing the return on investment of this tool. This difficulty makes it impossible for 31% of them to justify investments of this kind with their superiors.

Other hurdles include limited financial resources and too low volumes for implementing a TMS in 31% of the cases, and even company needs that are too general and do not require a more powerful operational management tool for 19% of respondents.

Reducing your transportation costs: three major levers

According to 217 respondents, three levers can be activated to reduce a company’s transportation costs. For 57% of them, the first lever is optimizing vehicle loading, which requires consolidation, among other actions.

Furthermore, 47% of companies rely on precise costs analyzes to find out which positions need to be optimized, while 44% would implement changes in order to make transportation itineraries more profitable.

In the past, these levers were in the hands of the carriers themselves. They have now been taken over by consignors to streamline their operating processes but most importantly to gain better control over the services they offer their clients. However, these types of restructuring require skill building in order to integrate newly acquired tasks into analysis and optimization axes.

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How much progress is left to make?

There is still extensive room for progress in the sector dedicated to the transportation of merchandise. For 40% of managers surveyed, that progress can mainly be made in transportation performance indicators and in the optimization of itineraries (39%). The latter factor tops the surveys for 3PL and in wholesaling.

Although coming in at the top of the list, these two axes are not the only areas for improvement mentioned. Progress can also be made in other areas such as loading management (29%), ensuring better communication with carriers (24%) and carrier selection (23%).