TMC Blog

If your business is highly cyclical, how do you derive value from a transportation management system (TMS) in an environment where there is a flood of orders or the flow of shipments has slowed to a trickle?

It’s an important question for anyone who has to justify an investment in the technology – and that surely includes freight managers who have bought into a TMS solution. Read More...

Can you save money by making it easier for carriers to do business with you? It’s not a new topic, but as a community, have we reached a definitive answer?

It may not be the most politically correct analogy, but I once had a customer describe this philosophy as “the beauty pageant of freight.”  From his perspective, the more attractive his freight was to the carrier community, the more apt he was to gain capacity at a fair price, and thus achieve his financial objectives. Read More...

In our previous post (Making the Sales Surge Connection ), we explored transportation-related problems that can unseat special retailing events such as seasonal sales, promotions, and product launches. In this post we offer some suggestions for improving this critical link in the sales push supply chain.

Since a lack of communication is often at the heart of problems like these, one solution is to include transportation in the planning loop. This might sound obvious, but all too often freight management issues are overlooked during the preparatory stages of a sales event. Read More...

With a record-setting holiday buying season in its rear view mirror, what has the freight transportation industry learned about the challenges of supporting special sales events such as seasonal demand peaks, product launches, and promotional campaigns?

In this post, we take a look at the pitfalls that shippers and service providers face when planning for these spikes in demand. Next week, we’ll offer some strategies for avoiding missteps that cause lost sales and frustrated customers. Read More...