Black Friday – that US retail phenomenon which is a relatively recent import to the UK – is now crowding the calendar along with the triple whammy of the Covid-19 lockdown, planning for Christmas and preparing for the final act of Brexit.
Transport operators, therefore, face a compressed demand-cycle which now has an additional earlier peak (Black Friday) while building for the Christmas rush – the scale of which this particular year will be anyone’s guess. Supply chains will need to be resilient and flexible to accommodate it all but the good news is that with a modern, capable transport management system (TMS), transport planning, executing and reporting issues should be taken in its stride.
To manage these myriad hurdles operators will need a TMS that can respond to rapid changes in demand automatically – with minimal manual intervention. Such a TMS must certainly use a Software-as-a-Service* (SaaS) model.
With Covid-19 impacting the retail environment right across the Black Friday period, easy deployment to a non-retail customer base is a must for a transport operator’s success. Companies will need to deliver an IT environment where new workflows and rules can be introduced or amended easily – and only be required for a limited period of time, i.e. for Black Friday and Christmas. A completely different set of workflows is likely to be needed for life outside the EU shortly thereafter and a TMS must be able to handle that as well.
Deltion’s SaaS-based TMS, CarrierNet, can handle all of the above and more.
If you are having issues with your TMS systems, please contact Bashir Khan at bashir.khan@deltion.co.uk.