WHITE PAPER. How Transportation and Logistics Companies Can Reinvent Their Customer Relationships

Transcription

1 WHITE PAPER How Transportation and Logistics Companies Can Reinvent Their Customer Relationships

2 Doing So Much More with So Much Less Never before has an industry been forced to do so much more with so much less, explained Jim Blaeser of American Shipper. The Great Recession forced many transportation and logistics companies to reduce staff, but as the cargo volumes returned, the staff did not. Meanwhile, customers demands only increased while financial managers continued to focus on cost reduction. Regretfully, forward-leaning transportation and logistics companies had little help from Silicon Valley. When times are tough, many companies turn to start-ups for innovative ways to lower costs, redefine customer relationships and unlock new market opportunities, observed Aaron Sasson, founder of GT Nexus. Unfortunately, there have only been a handful of truly innovative solutions for this industry in the last ten years. The most successful innovators improved operating efficiency by moving on-premise services, such as , to the cloud, lowering software license and server costs. But for companies that sought to reinvent their customer relationships, innovate quickly and improve business models, there were few options. When times are tough, many companies turn to start-ups for innovative ways to lower costs, redefine customer relationships and unlock new market opportunities, observed Aaron Sasson, founder of GT Nexus. Embracing the Cloud Finally Why? For starters, the mainstream transportation and logistics industry is only now embracing the Cloud will be a turning point for the transportation and logistics industry and the adoption of the cloud, mused Peter Knapp, President of International Logistics Services, Jacobson Companies, a leading global logistics provider based in Des Moines, Iowa. For the first time, more companies will use software-as-a-service than licensed

3 software purchased from outside vendors, he said, referring to software which is bought as a subscription and run on servers in the cloud, hence the name software-as-a-service or SaaS. Indeed, adoption of SaaS has risen from 18% to 29% in the last four years, according to a poll by American Shipper. Most agree with Knapp, SaaS will bypass licensed software which has flat-lined at 31% for the last four years. Pacesetters are defined as companies that are differentiating themselves through strategic reinvention, better decisions and deeper collaboration in the Cloud, and they are growing almost twice as fast as their competitors and their profits are almost 50% higher than their rivals. The Rise of the Cloud Pacesetter For the companies that embrace the Cloud and SaaS, the rewards are plentiful. Those on the front-line of cloud adoption are often referred to as Pacesetters, about a fifth of corporations according to a recent survey by IBM and Oxford Economics. Pacesetters are defined as companies that are differentiating themselves through strategic reinvention, better decisions and deeper collaboration in the Cloud, based on the poll of 802 cloud decisionmakers and users, 40% of whom are C-Level executives. Pacesetters see the Cloud as a way of growing their top-line, far more than reducing costs. They look for new business opportunities in software-as-service innovation. Most importantly, their financial performance reflects their appetite for aggressive, but measured investment. Pacesetters are growing almost twice as fast as their competitors and their profits are almost 50% higher than their rivals, the study observed. Traditional CRM Doesn t Speak our Language Not surprisingly, many pacesetters listed redefining their customer relationships in the Cloud as a key priority; they evaluated traditional customer relationship management (CRM) solutions from vendors such as Oracle and SAP. Still, most CRM projects in the transportation and logistics industry failed to deliver business value. We found that the CRM applications offered by the industry leaders, just don t speak our language, explained an operations executive at a mid-tier logistics company. We would

4 have to spend so much in customizing the out-of-the-box product for our requirements that the numbers didn t add up. In fact, most mainstream CRM evaluations in the transportation and logistics industry resulted in one of three outcomes: successful, but requiring significant customization through IT resources or third-party systems integration firms; incomplete, due to partial success in addressing end-user requirements; or ineffective, due to inability to deliver projected value. What Logistics and Transportation Needs from CRM What do logistics and transportation companies need, that isn t addressed by mainstream CRM solutions from companies like Oracle and SAP? Ask anyone who has participated in a CRM evaluation and they ll share the following observations: First, most CRM systems are hard-wired for an inside sales rep at a technology company, selling a product from a static price list. The rep calls leads, follows a prescriptive sale, checks a price list that s updated once a year and pushes hard to close an order, usually during the last hour of the last day of the quarter. In transportation, on the other hand, reps need to quickly quote port-to-port rates, often referencing the rates of dozens of providers. Others require rules-based workflow so the pricing department can approve each request, with notifications so managers are aware of what s happening in the field. In downstream logistics, business development teams manage a book of business; they need a portfolio manager that helps them understand where their projects stand in each stage of their life-cycle. They need to work across an entire team, often with upwards of dozens of collaborators, from contracts to accounting.

5 Most CRM solutions offer forecasts based in quantities and dollar amount of products sold. In transportation and logistics, volume, capacity, TEU and EBITDA are as important as quantities and dollars sold. Finally, many CRM solutions are architected for desktop browsers, not smartphones or tablets. As a result, mobile account teams are disconnected from the revenue operations, whether they re calling on an account miles from their home office in Chicago or from a garment manufacturer in Bangladesh. Best of Both Worlds Up until recently, forward-leaning pace-setters had little choice other than customize CRM applications from SAP and Oracle. Fortunately, companies such as Lanetix are leading the charge, bringing industry-specific capabilities to the transportation and logistics market, all while leveraging the strength of an underlying cloud-based architecture, namely Salesforce. com s Salesforce1 platform. This allows transportation and logistics companies to get the industry-specific functionality they need with the reliability, security and scalability of the world s most trusted cloud platform. No longer do these companies need to make a choice. About Lanetix Lanetix provides cloud-based CRM for the logistics and transportation industry. Based on Salesforce1, our solutions help LSP s and ocean carriers evolve from relationship-based to value-creation selling. With Lanetix, sales and operations management gain global visibility across account teams and the ability to forecast based on the metrics that matter to their business (such as profit margins, capacity, and volume). Headquartered in San Francisco, California, Lanetix is privately held and backed by investors such as Salesforce.com.