In the fast-paced world of supply chain management, Transportation Management Systems (TMS) have become an indispensable tool for retailers seeking to optimize their transportation operations. With the ability to streamline processes, cut costs, and leverage advanced technologies, TMS solutions are critical for maintaining a competitive edge. By integrating TMS into their operations, retailers can not only improve efficiency but also drive innovation and make data-informed decisions that enhance their overall supply chain strategy. This is what retailers thought.
However, as time passed, new challenges surfaced.
Your TMS used to be cutting edge
For decades, transportation management systems were primarily used by retailers to manage carriers, fleet and transporters while providing minimal tracking. That said, this solution wasn’t meant for complete logistics management.
Below are what a legacy TMS does to an extent:
- Costs: Saving on costs for both the company and the end customer through efficient operations
- Transportation modes: Streamlining supply chain operations across different regions, transportation modes, and carriers
- Automated Billing: Automating business processes for quicker and more precise billing and paperwork
- Workflow automation: Saving time by reducing manual tasks, leading to fewer hold-ups and quicker deliveries
- Tracking: Enabling tracking of shipments, both locally and internationally, through a single platform
- Regulatory compliance: Better adherence to import and export regulations to avoid fines and delays in shipments
- Analytics: Gaining new insights for the business as improved reporting facilitates quicker decision-making and process enhancements
- Timely delivery: Scaling the business to meet and surpass customer expectations for prompt, on-time deliveries
Why isn’t your TMS cutting it?
In the retail sector, a TMS often struggles to keep pace with the dynamic demands of the market. They face numerous challenges, including inefficiencies in route planning, difficulties in carrier collaboration, a lack of real-time visibility into shipments and other logistics operations. These issues not only disrupt the flow of goods but also lead to increased operational costs and customer dissatisfaction, impacting revenue in the long run.
Let’s dive deep into a legacy TMS’ Achilles Heel
- Dynamic route optimization: While some legacy TMS solutions can create fixed route plans, they cannot route orders on the fly while accommodating to bypass on-ground challenges adhoc demands to deliver on time.
- Address accuracy: Not all addresses are clear from the get go. This means a lot of drivers spend precious minutes calling up customers for directions, which impacts on-time delivery rates and reduce the customer experience. Retailers with captive fleets struggle without robust logistics solutions and have to rely on manual methods which are time consuming and cost heavy.
- Returns: Returns is a day-to-day thing for retailers. However, it’s not so much as with the product but the additional costs they incur during the return process due to underutilization of the existing fleet.
- No order visibility for shoppers: Whilst outsourcing orders to a third-party carrier can fix your tracking issues, however, with leveraging captive fleet, your order page should be equipped with a tracking link with turn-by-turn navigation and automated notifications during delays.
- Stunted Capacity: During peak season, retailers are forced to cater to huge volumes of orders and with limited captive fleet, it is challenging to accommodate all orders without compromising operation efficiency or losing orders.
- Slot Based Delivery: Legacy TMS can’t provide time-definite delivery options that gel well with the existing capacity and their routes.
- Carrier network: TMS offers a vast carrier network, however it might not come with pre-loaded carriers and trying to integrate with multiple external 3PL/CEP systems might be risky due to security concerns.
- Analytics: Legacy TMS does provide analytics to a certain extent, however the depth of the insights doesn’t cover the entirety of logistics, which isn’t an ideal given the scale of logistics.
- Package Sorting: Retailers that rely on captive fleet likely need to hire personnel to sort packages at the warehouse. Since this is a manual process, shipping errors are inevitable, making the entire process expensive and time consuming.
These are just a few challenges a legacy TMS can’t work around, requiring retailers to set up/onboard a separate system to make sure their logistics operations aren’t hampered which isn’t ideal to say the least. The operations team shouldn’t work this way and yes, there is a better way.
Integrate Locus with your TMS
Business leaders always fear while disconnecting from a system, the chain reaction it will have on the rest of the process and systems in the ecosystem. IT and operation teams can rest easy. With a simple and secure API, we can integrate Locus’ Order to Delivery solution with your TMS in no time and in a hassle-free way. This transforms your TMS into a supply chain and logistics powerhouse.
With the adoption of an augmented TMS, retailers can look forward to overcoming the limitations of their current systems, paving the way for performance improvement and ongoing innovation in transportation management systems. Now let’s check out what Locus can do for retailers:
Deliver orders on-time anytime and every time
In the current retail landscape, Retailers with outdated TMS setups face the challenge of suboptimal route planning, which can lead to increased travel time and higher shipping expenses. An augmented TMS offers a solution by leveraging Locus’ advanced routing engine to optimize routes based on various 200 + real world constraints such as distance, traffic conditions, and delivery timelines.
Deliver orders to anywhere
Customers tend to make mistakes while filling out delivery addresses or the driver isn’t aware of the delivery area. Making them spend more time just looking for the address. Locus’ smart geocoder can convert any customer address into precise latitude and longitude coordinates and send these coordinates into the driver navigation application for smooth and fast delivery.
Returns won’t cost you as much
Shoppers are fickle, they might return their orders for multiple reasons, but the point of this is not why they return but how much it would cost retailers when shoppers do this. According to research, a total of $619 billion was the cost of retail returns in 2022.
With Locus’ Dispatch Management Solution powering TMS, additional deployment of fleet is not necessary due to smart fleet allocation and routes which leads to clubbing of forward and reverse logistics. This allows retailers to get the most of each truck/fleet, all the while making sure none of the return pickups are hurting existing delivery SLAs.
Enable end-to-end transparency with order tracking
Set up tracking links on your tracking pages through the platform which provides turn-by-turn updates to customers about their orders in real time. Let them know that their order has entered a new fulfillment stage or is delayed due to on-ground challenges via an automated notification, all programmed within Locus and sent via the TMS.
Stay on top of every delivery
Holiday and peak season shipping is always like a lottery for many retailers as not all orders are catered to; this isn’t always due to lack of inventory but due to the lack of transportation capacity. With Locus’ smart capacity planning solution, retailers can plan capacity ahead of time, by factoring in driver time off, sick days and more variables with smart algorithms thereby ensuring optimal utilization of resources.
Deliver at the time of choice of shoppers
Shoppers have become more demanding than ever before. From super fast delivery to time definite delivery. Most retailers who provide slot-based deliveries provide slots that benefit them not the shopper. This is due to underutilized capacity and routing systems. However, with Locus’ Dispatch Management system, retailers can gain insight on shoppers’ preferred time with a smart algorithm and then auto allocate orders to available resource and route orders by factoring in on-ground challenges to deliver. Retailers can also charge a small surcharge to compensate for priority shipping.
Access a large and secure carrier network
TMS has the ability to connect retailers with multiple carriers through integrations that could be secure or unsecure. However, Locus comes with pre-loaded top carrier partners and if need be retailers can further expand the network with a simple 4 point integration with any 3PL/CEP.
Advanced analytics
A legacy TMS can provide valuable insights for shippers. However, extensive final mile insights aren’t in its capabilities. Locus’ Dispatch Management System can provide actionable insights on more than 250+ operational metrics in the form of a dashboard for stakeholders.
Automate warehouse operations
With Locus’ Hub Operation module, a traditional Transportation Management System (TMS) gains the ability to automatically sort packages in the warehouse based on several factors such as ZIP code, order dimensions, perishability, and more. It then assigns them to the appropriate truck or vehicle, ensuring that the vehicle’s space is fully utilized to prevent waste. All this with little to no manual intervention, saving retailers on personnel cost and time to sort.
So… What’s the score?
| Feature | Legacy TMS | Locus Augmented TMS |
| Dynamic Routing with 180+ Real world constraint | No | Yes |
| Advanced Analytics | No | Yes |
| Automated Capacity Planning | No | Yes |
| Tracking | No | Yes |
The Final Verdict
In summary, enhancing a TMS is not just a passing trend but a critical strategy for retailers aiming to succeed in the intricate supply chain landscape of today. The adoption of cutting-edge technologies like real-time tracking, analytics, and route optimization gives businesses a competitive advantage through improved efficiency, visibility, and cost savings. Retailers who commit to upgrading their TMS can anticipate significant enhancements in their transportation processes, leading to smoother, more sustainable, and profitable operations. As the supply chain management field continues to evolve, those who fully utilize their TMS capabilities will be in a strong position to fulfill market demands and surpass customer expectations.
Why Locus?
Brands like Lulu Group International, TATA, Unliever and many top retailers trust Locus for their logistics operations. You can too, without replacing your TMS. Book a demo to know more!