Chris Cassidy, EVP of Global Sales & Strategic Partnerships at Trax Technologies, was recently a guest on the FreightWaves Podcast at The Future of Supply Chain Conference.
In his chat with host Mary O’Connell, Freight Broker and 3PL Expert, Chris laid out the major barriers to visibility in the supply chain, and how that’s undermining growth for organizations worldwide.
This article summarizes some of the points that conversation covered: Listen to it here.
The Complexity of Visibility in Supply Chain
Visibility is a hot topic in transportation and logistics at the moment. Consumers know where their Amazon packages are, down to the number of stops away. However, shippers rarely get the same visibility, and this creates a disconnect between consumer demand and service.
But Chris explains, “The average product has 5-7 touches along the supply chain, and gaining and managing visibility of that product at every stage is key.”
Offshoring, nearshoring, multiple shoring, and a variety of other tactics further the complexity of obtaining visibility. Today, global brands need a reliable source of truth to manage all of this information.
Managing Multiple Supply Chain Systems and Sources of Truth
At that level, and on every other scale, gaining a single source of truth for data is very difficult, often impeded by archaic, low-tech systems that can’t efficiently streamline, aggregate, and deliver data transparently and in real-time.
Managing multiple tech systems means managing multiple streams of data.
- How do you evaluate performance?
- How do you centralize data?
- How do you understand spend?
- How do you track progress?
It’s highly likely that shippers will use multiple invoice platforms, which means a cross-selection of information for even a single product or shipment.
This not only undermines current, real-time insights but makes it almost impossible to accurately forecast budgeting and spend for the next fiscal year.
Trax is a leader in this space, championing innovative approaches to freight audit and payment that reduce complexity, normalize and standardize data, and create regular cycles of analysis that uncover any issues before they escalate.
We call the ultimate outcome of this transportation spend management maturity.
Trax: Gaining Maximum Visibility
Chris explains that, at Trax, we are on a mission to support some of the world’s largest shippers.
This includes those with extraordinarily complex operations, handling half a billion or more in spend and spanning numerous global markets. We break it down and start at step one: freight audit as table stakes.
We organize, clean up, and optimize the data.
This unlocks the ability to gain maximum visibility to refine processes in a way that supports efficiency.
We can serve global shippers using their current technology solutions in a tech agnostic way.
Contact Trax to Learn More
Note: this conversation was a fireside chat recorded at the Future of Supply Chain Conference in northwest Arkansas. To learn more about how Trax Technologies is driving the future of transparency and efficiency in the supply chain, browse our site or contact us directly.
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