Shipping is a complex and highly regulated industry that requires meeting a variety of regulations, standards, and protocols that differ country to country, port to port, down to the type of cargo being shipped. Additionally, shipping hazardous materials — HAZMAT — makes the journey from point A to point B more complicated with the necessary compliance and regulations.
If you thought that wasn’t entangled enough, keep in mind that denied parties can further hamstring shipping outputs and create more legal and logistical headaches for everyone including fines and, on drastic occassions, jailtime.
ProcessWeaver ensures that you are compliant with your carriers and regulatory agency requirements, as it operates as an extention of your ERP software. That way, you’ll always know that your labeling, documents, and carrier-tendering result in you getting the right item, to the right customer, at the time and place they need it, while having visibility of it all.
Being able to integrate a multi-carrier shipping software that can streamline the preparation of shipping goods or materials to meet the documentation and packaging requirements of your shipper brings with it scalability and other benefits.
We’ll take a look at how ensuring proper carrier compliance in corporate shipping can create faster delivery times, reduced costs and liability and even increase customer satisfaction.
We all want to streamline delivery, and carrier compliance can help. By putting systems in place that help verify carrier compliance, you’re clearing the way for streamlined, high-performance delivery.
Specifically, ensured compliance helps reduce the risk of delays that could have been brough forth by breaching compliance regulations. It’s critical to know that, regardless of what’s being shipped, that the freight is within the law on every compliance requirement before it ‘s loaded up.
Avoiding mistakes in this key part of the process can help avoid costly delays in shipments.
Whether employing a digital supply chain solution or doing things manually, solid due diligence around performance, financial and operational compliance can help identify errors before they cause delays.
Better carrier compliance can also help keep operating costs in check. When deliveries are wrong, late, damaged or delayed, the wayward shipping transaction typically has an exponentially negative financial impact on the bottom line.
Damaged goods must not only be replaced, but pulled, packaged, re-shipped, etc. The customer is disappointed, and the problem may even set off a chain reaction of costs on the buyer’s end. It’s possible to lose a $100M account on the back of one small shipment gone wrong. And even if that specific shipping failure does not have dire financial consequences to the buyer, it will disappoint the customer.
How carrier compliance is monitored by a shipper’s carrier manager also has a financial impact. Digitized, automated carrier compliance records tied into a shipper’s ERP software means less manual work trying to determine the best carrier, terms, rate or risk for any given shipment. This might not seem like much on a single shipment, but scaled up to a global organization this everyday shipping procurement function really adds up in terms of labor and opportunity cost. Integrated shipping data platforms can automatically negotiate contracts with hundreds of high-performance carriers, calculate the most efficient routes and best overall deal—even taking into consideration data such as weather forecasts, complex foreign duties, multiple third-party costs and dozens of other variables.
There is also the issue of financial liability. Implementing an ERP-integrated solution provides real-time carrier compliance data that can help you avoid any shipping-related risk.
Implementing an ERP-integrated solution can also play a role in reducing costs incurred from liabilities. These solutions can help you make sure that your recipients are not denied parties, as breaching those laws can create a tornado of compliance headaches that will only cause delays, fines and even potential jailtime for repeated offenses.
Carrier compliance isn’t just about the carrier’s performance or brand; it’s about yours as well. When stronger carrier compliance is baked into your supply chain, customers get a more seamless, less stressful experience. When there are fewer surprises, there is greater peace of mind. And when people are kept abreast of any issues along the way, they are typically more understanding — or at least empowered to plan around the problem.
Customer satisfaction metrics improve, followed by customer loyalty. Greater customer trust and loyalty means more sales, market share growth and higher overall lifetime customer value. These carrier performance factors can, over time, even play a role in determining more broad metrics such as company valuation.
Ensuring carrier compliance across your supply chain is worth the effort, especially if you automate carrier-related transactions via ERP integration and work smart. When you’ve done your due diligence and comply with your carriers and regulatory agencies, delivery times are faster. Your organization spends less on shipping, and could lower a number of other expenses and liabilities.
Most importantly, carrier compliance can result in a better customer experience —which could help protect and grow your market share. So however you make it happen, keep a tight rein on carrier compliance and let high-performance shipping add more value to your supply chain.