Want to Increase Speed to Market?

Does your business have the need for speed? Because distribution, transportation, and staffing solutions are the trifecta of success.

As consumers, we expect to get what we want quickly. The ecommerce world we live in has made next-day and same-day shipping not just a reality, but the expectation. How many times have you ordered something online only to realize a day later you still haven’t received your order — and your item will be arriving a week late? We feel cheated, or may even cancel our order to opt for something we can get much sooner.

This expectation we have as consumers is also the expectation in the B2B world. As companies look to be innovative, push boundaries and increase quality, timelines get reduced. It’s no longer acceptable to take several weeks to produce an item and get it through the supply chain to the end user. And not only are timelines a concern, but so is cost. So what’s the solution?

Our company recently won new business and partnered with an industry-leading Food and Beverage client. They needed a solution to achieve better speed to market to reduce costs and get their displays to market quickly, cheaply and on time. We needed to do this every time and without fail.

In response, we identified the issues and created a cost-effective plan that achieved our client’s goals.

Unmatched Distribution Footprint

The quickest way to get something to someone on the West Coast is to ship it from the West Coast. The same applies anywhere. It’s also significantly cheaper to ship something from a nearby distribution center. A good supply chain partner has a footprint that can get products to the end user within two days. For one of our Food and Beverage clients, we ship orders out the same day they come in from six of our distribution centers across U.S., hitting all destinations in two to three days, via ground service.

Staffing and Solutions

Since there’s not always time to ramp up, once approval is complete, our client’s Food and Beverage items get sourced, produced and sent to the distribution center. This means you ship orders immediately. To accomplish this, we utilize a flexible staffing model that allows us to keep trained staff immediately available to ship orders out the same day they’re received. This way, the person placing the order will get a tracking number within hours and can see the package actually heading their way when they track it online. We also utilize automation within our Warehouse Management System (WMS) to eliminate several steps often found in the pick, pack, ship process. This reduces what would normally be a 10-step process to three steps.

Best-in-Class Transportation Management

Transportation is often the final step in the supply chain, but without a best-in-class solution, distribution footprint and staffing don’t matter. As shippers like FedEx and UPS experience more volume than ever, they’re constantly updating their pricing, regulations, dimensional weight, and accessory charges to maximize their profit. Our transportation spend allows us to negotiate more favorable agreements with our shippers and pass those savings on to our customers.

Key to success is our Transportation Management team’s ability to track and trace services from the time the package leaves one of our distribution centers, to the time it arrives at the end destination. This allows us to intercept issues with packages along the way and address them proactively. As a result, shipments reach their destination on time, every time, without fail.