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Logistics
The market for providers of logistics services in the global air freight is highly competitive; it offers not only service and sales but also the entire data processing area to support a range of service packages with guaranteed delivery times and other benefits.
Flexibility is essential to provide all members of the companyˇ¦s international sales team with access to the same tools; and data analysis has to be quick for the business, for which time is the critical factor.
Apart from fulfilling the above basic requirements, an ideal Business Intelligence (BI) tool should also be suitable for the sales planning process, with support for local budget planning and sales management. It should provide flexibility in planning as well as up-to-date monitoring capabilities, goal-oriented analysis, and efficient preparation and processing of information. Alongside these functional areas, user-friendliness of the system is important for it could be used by all employees of the worldwide sales team, not just a handful of specialists.
From a business management perspective, our BI solution helps the company to systematically identify market opportunities, portray them realistically, and react quickly to changes. The planning process follows several steps: market evaluation and strategy, strategic corporate planning, budget planning, and day-to-day budget management. It deals with budget planning and management, using the output of the market strategy and corporate planning process.
The Process
Each region plans its budget at a predefined period. The data is revised at regular intervals with new information from sources such as market surveys. The variables used in planning are net sales, handling/packaging charges, tonnage and average sales per kilo (yield). For each month, these four variables could be analysed by region, carrier, distance transported and service ˇV a true multidimensional task.
More information can be summarized at supplier level, so that traders can understand which suppliers are delivering the best margins, and are responsible for the highest sales. It enables the business to improve its terms and establish closer relationships with the suppliers.
When forward planning, it is likely each region plans its carriers for every month and for every journey. For the transport of the main regional exports, the logistics services provider will have signed contracts with different carriers. Due to seasonal variation and variable demand, the same volume is not transported every month. In order to guarantee trouble-free transport of goods to the destination countries, the carrier must communicate to the logistics provider the exact capacity available for each stage of the journey. Afterwards, the providerˇ¦s planning manager enters all the information supplied by the carrier into the planning framework.
Once the planning manager has integrated information from all carriers into the planning system, flight capacity is assigned to the potential carriers with the help of the network planning tool. Freight capacity is only available if other lucrative business is not expected during the same time period. Once capacity planning is complete, the data is added to the budget data, which represents the standard aims of the business.
After receiving data in our system, the planning manager or sales person can evaluate and analyse the information with the help of the integrated monitoring tools. For example, should the planning manager want to know whether budget targets are being met, the monitoring tool advises of probabilities and risks, and shows the results for each month in terms of tonnage, yield, sales volume, charges and sales contribution, compared with the budget. Every combination of service, flight stage, carrier, weight class, sales contribution and costs can then be analysed in detail.
The company can also make extensive use of the flexibility of our development environment and implement long-term planning and quality assurance.
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