Why Data is the Lighthouse for Ocean Freight Logistics
Whether you have a Quote Management System or you track your success rates in a spreadsheet, the fact is you have no clue what happens the minute you send out a rate request or quotation for a shipment.
Why? Because email, FAX or even phone quotes can’t be tracked. You have no idea if your rate was too high or your transit time was too long. You don’t know what your true response time was, and what effect that had on your ability to win the business. You don’t even know if you requoted the same shipment multiple times! As we mentioned in this recent post, the entire process of figuring out what your rate should be is practically a soap opera unto itself.
To keep our customers from getting adrift at sea, CoLoadX was built with robust analytics to make you better at quoting. We like to think of our data tracking as a lighthouse, guiding your business to safety.
Here’s a look at some of the key analytics you need to be aware of. CoLoadX is constantly adding the ability to check these in real time, with analytics upgrades to be unveiled in the near future.
How Analytics Help NVOCC’s
- Don’t Leave Money on the Table - You know you have a great rate, and you know you’re in a competitive market, but you have no clue just how competitive, so you only add a $50 mark up per container. But did you know that your price was $300 cheaper per container than the next competitor? So yes, you left $200 on the table. CoLoadX provides the benchmarking data to help you maximize your yield, and we do it WITHOUT revealing your competitors’ identity to you or vice versa! Contrast that with quoting by email, where you have no idea how much money you could have made. Even worse, your customer emails your rate quote to your competitor just to get a better deal.
- Turnaround Time - Our research shows that NVOCC’s who quote fastest win the most bookings, even if their rate was HIGHER than subsequent offers received by a Freight Forwarder. CoLoadX tracks your company’s turnaround time so that you can figure out if your success is tied to pricing or performance. And yes, this too is done anonymously so that no two NVOCC’s are ever played against each other.
- Rate vs. Transit Time - Conventional wisdom says that a shorter transit time is supposed to come with a higher freight cost. But have you ever actually measured or tracked it within your own business? Does it hold true in a market where discounting prevails? Do your customers even care about transit time or are they totally price driven? CoLoadX compares quotes in real time to show how your rate compared to competitors in terms of both rate and transit time.
There’s no way to build a successful, scalable sales process without data. Why shouldn’t that apply to your quoting?
How Analytics Help Freight Forwarders
- Savings - There are a few ways that CoLoadX can track your savings rates, but the easiest one is to simply analyze the quotes you receive in our marketplace. What’s the average rate? What’s the range? What’s the value decision you’re making about the rate you chose to accept and book? Right now, we bet you’re doing this with a pencil and calculator. CoLoadX makes this decision process faster and visible in one online dashboard enabling you to actually track your savings.
- Aggregate Response Rate - Right now you probably shop for rates with about three NVOCC’s...the ones who happen to send in sales reps. It makes sense. How many emails can your staff send, sort, print and save? And do you know how many of those reps are actually replying to all of your quotes at all? CoLoadX allows you to track vendor quote completion and success rates in real time. We use our proprietary technology to make sure you can identify your vendors and not have them exposed to each other. We respect your time: The last thing we want is for a barrage of competing quotes to come your way every time someone drops a rate by $25.
- Geographic Concentration - Does it feel like you’re always looking for rates from Tupelo, MS? Is it true, or is it just so time consuming to find rates from that origin that it simply feels like that’s all you ever do? CoLoadX tracks and reports your most frequent origins and destinations in one map-based dashboard so that you don’t have to guess about the difference between your quote volume and booking volume. Now imagine using that data to negotiate better deals for other parts of your business. That’s something email can never do.
Nobody knows freight forwarding like we do. We’ve been through all of these scenarios and many more. That’s why we decided to build a technology that keeps you from getting lost in the wide ocean of cargo logistics. Let CoLoadX be your lighthouse.
Did You Know…?
The CoLoadX Success Team has over half a century of combined experience in the import/export and logistics management industries. Our expertise and commitment to the logistics industry is time-tested.
We invite you to come explore all the features on our site or, if you already have an account, log in and participate today!
By: CoLoadX on June 8, 2017, 1:23 p.m.