TMC Blog

Key to the success of an outsourced transportation management system (TMS) relationship is how much the provider manager responsible for the account knows about your business. Also important – but less obvious – is the availability of a backup manager who is also familiar with the nuances of your account. Such is the increasing complexity of freight networks that having a knowledgeable account manager is no longer enough; shippers also need to be reassured that there is an operations person who can step up to the plate and take over your account should the primary contact be unavailable. Read More...

Which issues will dominate the freight industry in 2012? There are many to choose from. We asked leading industry analyst Adrian Gonzalez about three challenges that are important to the future of freight transportation.

Collaborative freight networks. Everyone talks about it. Do you see competitors working together to finally store/ship product together? What’s the feedback been like? How were the barriers of resistance broken down? Read More...

The value of a transportation management system (TMS) is directly proportional to the expertise of the people using it. We explored this relationship in our recent posts Turning Tacticians into Strategists and Developing an Analytical Playbook for Your TMS. And the individuals who are best equipped to extract this value are power users.

As industry analyst Steve Banker says in a recent blog post[1], “What is the point of buying a Ferrari and then having your nearly-blind grandmother drive the car?”  Read More...

In my last post (Turning Tacticians into Strategists, April 28, 2011) I explored the fallacy that TMS technology alone can transform tactical personnel into skilled transportation analysts. In this post I offer guidance on the TMS tools that trained individuals should use to develop network management strategies that deliver competitive advantage.  Read More...

As I explained in a previous post (Getting the Most Out of TMS, April 01, 2011), shippers that elevate their transportation management systems (TMS) from tactical to strategic solutions tend to get the most value out of the technology. But making the transition involves more than a mission statement; it requires a level of expertise that tactical personnel often do not possess.  Read More...