As a freight broker or third-party logistics provider, you have many technology options at your disposal that you can implement in your business. It’s important to keep in mind, however, that some kinds of technology are more impactful than others. Certain types of technology can truly transform your business, making it agile, efficient and equipped to navigate even the most unpredictable future. Other types of technology may only offer incremental improvements to your operations and provide a lower-than-expected return on investment. In this blog, you’ll learn which specific types of technology can help make your operations more efficient, raise profit margins, streamline your team members’ workflows, and help you build strong, long-term relationships with shippers and carriers.
Here are 10 transformative technologies for freight brokers and third-party logistics providers.
1. Real-Time Visibility
Implementing a real-time load tracking software platform can greatly reduce or even eliminate the check calls your team must make in order to track active loads. With a GPS-based visibility platform like Trucker Tools,’ your team members are provided with instant, real-time digital location updates on loads every five to 15 minutes.
2. Geofencing
Some load tracking platforms include geofencing capabilities that can further increase efficiency and improve the accuracy of your load tracking. Geofencing allows your team members to set up virtual fences around pickup and delivery locations so that when a driver enters the geofenced area, they’re automatically prompted to start or stop tracking a load digitally.
3. Transparent Load Tracking
The Trucker Tools driver app, the carrier component of Trucker Tools’ load tracking platform, offers drivers a transparent load tracking experience, which ultimately can strengthen your relationships with drivers and carriers. While tracking an active load with the driver app, the driver can see exactly who is receiving location data and for which load. Drivers also can pause or cancel a load track directly in the app.
4. BOL/POD Document Upload
Once the driver reaches the geofenced destination, they can be automatically prompted to upload BOL and/or POD documents, as well. When a driver sends documents through the Trucker Tools app, your team receives a digital copy of the documents in the load tracking platform or in your TMS. Offering in-app document upload to carriers helps them get paid faster and reduces the amount of paperwork your back office team needs to handle.
5. Digital Freight Matching
Digital freight matching is a truly transformative technology because it puts all of your capacity options in one digital, searchable place. Team members don’t have to spend hours dialing for diesel or posting the same load to multiple load boards. Instead, they can search for capacity in seconds with digital freight matching and reach out only to those carriers that are likely to have capacity when and where it’s needed.
6. Predictive Load Matching
Digital freight matching platforms like Trucker Tools’ Smart Capacity also include predictive load matching technology that tells you where owner operator and carrier capacity will be available in the future. Predictive load matching data allows you to locate and secure carrier capacity before it’s ever posted publicly, keeping you one step ahead of your competitors.
7. Broker Advantage
Trucker Tools’ Broker Advantage lets you customize how carriers interact with your company in the Trucker Tools’ driver app and Trucker Tools’ carrier software platform. With Broker Advantage, you can post premium loads, time-sensitive messages, discounts and other information for carriers in an easy-to-access digital place — the Trucker Tools mobile app and free carrier software platform.
8. Software Integrations
The most important integration you should look for when shopping for any technology is TMS integration, because it will make your operations that much more efficient. Real-time visibility platforms that integrate with shipper visibility software programs like MacroPoint, FourKites, 10/4 and Project44 are valuable because they let you share visibility data with your shipper partners automatically, while ELD integrations give you another load tracking option to offer carriers.
9. App-Based Load Booking
Using an app-based load booking tool like Trucker Tools’ Book It Now® offers you scalability, i.e. the ability to grow your business without restructuring or significantly increasing your overhead. When an owner operator books one of your Book It Now® loads via the Trucker Tools app, the appointment is automatically scheduled in your TMS and the owner op receives an automated email confirming the details of the booking.
10. Online Load Booking
You can offer Book It Now® loads to carriers, as well, through Trucker Tools’ free carrier software platform. When a carrier dispatcher books one of your Book It Now® loads, the appointment also is automatically scheduled in your TMS and the carrier receives an email confirming the booking. Book It Now® is a win-win for both your business and your carrier partners because it greatly reduces the time required to finalize bookings.
Read Seven Ways COVID-19 Has Changed the Transportation Industry to discover how the pandemic is impacting how logistics companies like yours do business. Schedule a free demo of Trucker Tools’ real-time visibility platform, Smart Capacity digital freight matching platform and Book It Now®.
