Inbound Logistics | April 2022

THOUGHT Leaders S P O N S O R E D C O N T E N T

HowCollaboration and Technology Create Efficiencies for SMB’s

Q What technology solutions can be utilized to create efficiencies for SMB’s? A We found in our research that about 90%of companies with less than $250 million in revenue don’t have a transportation

One of the things people are starting to realize is that relationships and collaborationmatter. Many shippers have long viewed their relation- ships with their transportation providers as tactical rather than strategic, and they’re the ones suffering themost with today’s supply chain challenges. Simply taking the time to developmeaningful and long-term relationships can eliminate so many headaches down the road. Q How can collaboration be used to build relationships? A Education plays an important role. For instance, a typical LTL carrier has an economic disincentive to educate their customers. If you have the wrong NMFC (National Motor Freight Classification) number for the items you’re shipping, your costs can increase dramatically. Unfortunately, a carrier will almost never tell you about a misclassification when you should be getting charged less. However, as a 3PL, we have an economic incen- tive to educate our customers because we can only grow if we are able to show our customers a savings and a higher level of service. So, one of the services we provide with the onboarding of any customer is looking at every item they are shipping, matching NMFC num- bers for that item, the correct freight class, and tariff they should be using. In turn, allow- ing them to gain the best value for their freight spend.

management system to help them professionallymanage their freight.

We built our TMS from the shipper’s perspec- tive, and it encompasses everything that a transportationmanager would need toman- age their organization’s freight spend. Whether that be reporting or on-demand track-and- trace tools. The R2 TMS is specifically designed for those SMB’s that don’t have the budget to justify an enterprise solution. Q How long does it take to implement the R2 TMS? A We like tomeasure implementation in days not months, but the process can go as fast as the customer is willing. Where our TMS really shines is in the data aggregation phase. We request three to six months of customer data so we can preload it into the system. This includes everything from their products, freight classes, origins, and destinations. We also do an NMFC audit on all their freight tomake sure they’re not being overcharged. Taking all this data and translating it intomean- ingful reports allows our customers tomake good decisions quicker and gives thema com- petitive advantage against larger corporations. Typical implementation time is two to three weeks before the customer is up and running.

Frank Dreischarf VP of Supply Chain Solutions R2 Logistics fdreischarf@r2logistics.com www.r2logistics.com 214-445-4174

April 2022 • Inbound Logistics 39

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