Trucking, although being a fast-paced business, has historically been hesitant to adopt new technologies. However, the tides are turning, and the days of doing the same old, same old are dwindling.
Over the last decade, the trucking business has had a technology revolution, which accelerated in 2017 with implementing the ELD mandate. What was once a complex debate over the transition from paper to electronic logs has now been resolved, and the industry’s potential for technology adoption in other functional areas has risen as a result.
There has never been a better time for trucking to embrace technology than today.
Never before have all stakeholders, including drivers, had such a wealth of information at their fingertips daily.
In this climate, it’s challenging to obtain any form of advantage, as COVID-19 and the resulting labor shortages have rendered traditional techniques worthless.
Furthermore, supply chain productivity has been slowed by driver and warehouse labor shortages and higher material costs. Today’s constricted capacity cannot keep up with growth as logistics needs continue to rise to unprecedented levels, including record-setting rejection rates and per-invoice amounts.
On the other hand, industry leaders are devising new strategies to gain an advantage; logistical fights are now being worn at the micro-level. Technology assists businesses in overcoming short-term obstacles and allows them to scale more effectively and efficiently.
TriumphPay found that nearly 52 percent of respondents have embraced various levels of automation in their paperwork approval and carrier payment process in a recent survey on best invoicing practices done with FreightWaves. Approximately 65 percent of companies use automation to reduce the amount of paperwork they receive.
API and secure file transfer integrations, for example, are already commonplace in a variety of businesses. Data exchange between companies enables businesses to automate a significant portion of their manual procedures.
Choosing not to innovate will almost certainly result in problems for your company in the future. Operating inefficient procedures is costly and eats into your profit margins. Worse, fragmented or out-of-date solutions will detract from your carrier and client experience, causing them to defect to your competition.
When technology is unimaginative and challenging to use, it can hinder and possibly inhibit growth. If a freight broker can’t charge the lowest rate to the shipper while paying the most significant margins to the carrier, it will lose business to the broker down the street. As a result, it is self-evident to embrace innovation.
To handle load and payment processes to handle only basic technology on hand. Many transportation management systems are highly customized or designed in-house, which may sound like a good thing for your specific operations, but it drastically limits your capacity to interface with systems or parties outside of your networks.
If everyone else is using technology and automation, but you’re still in the war room with a hundred people attempting to do it manually, or without business-to-business linkages, you’ll be unable to cover the load quickly enough, function effectively, and eventually lose your capacity to compete.
The same may be said for factoring companies in the industry. The quick pace of today’s logistics has no patience for paperwork; the future is digital. Similarly, as unstructured emails and paper stacks grow around them, many factoring organizations haven’t entirely converted to this new style of record keeping. Worse, any delays experienced by the factor are felt by its customers as well.
Many variables continue to validate invoice data with phone calls and emails to the broker and handle cash application at the invoice level by hand in this $75 billion business where data veracity is critical. On the other hand, factoring organizations can verify if a client has been given a load and automatically validate the information needed to make purchase decisions thanks to access to insightful data. Carriers may easily submit their documentation, providing additional information to factors to help them make better judgments. The factor can automate the cash application procedure with access to ACH remittance data.
TriumphPay unites brokers, shippers, factors, and carriers to process, settle, and manage carrier payments through innovative technologies. The frictionless service streamlines audit for brokerages and factoring firms, combining a single source of truth from load data to improve service carrier clients’ credibility.
Because it eliminates numerous human operations, automation is at the heart of the payment platform, making the back office more efficient and less vulnerable to fraud. Its capabilities allow brokers to pay their carrier invoices more quickly, increasing growth and carrier loyalty.
Although the back office cannot be removed entirely, the amount of work that goes into it can be significantly decreased by automation. Supply chain finance has never been more accessible, so paperwork, which is frequently many and lengthy, no longer needs to bog down post-load activities. TriumphPay continues to increase market share among brokers, where it manages carrier payments and adds value to stakeholders along the payment process.
The rapid pace of logistics will only accelerate, making paperwork and other back-office activities increasingly redundant. There’s no better time to embrace technology than now when automation through integration is possible for the entire sector.
