White Paper: Transportation And Logistics — Are You Managing A Cost Function Or Driving A Strategic Profit Center?

With a tough economy, organizations typically look to trim expenses. Over and over, shippers are inundated with emails and phone calls about "how to save money" on their logistics and transportation.

Yes, inbound and outbound shipping is an area ripe for saving money. But, let's go one step further and turn the outbound shipping function into a strategic profit center with its own revenue stream, its own cost of goods sold, its own desired "upcharge" margin per transaction and predictable return on investment. With transportation being 50% of logistics costs, this is a significant opportunity.

Making money is more exciting than saving money and it's a positive fact that in transportation business management, the same steps that will make money are similar to those that save. The biggest difference is the to-the-penny science that is necessary when managing shipping as a profit center versus the "good-enough" metrics often applied to a function viewed as a necessary cost center.