Logistics is a complex industry. At every stage of the process, from transport, warehousing and on to final mile delivery there’s a lot of moving parts to deal with in order to control costs, performance and revenue.

In the race to stay ahead, there’s also increased pressure on margins, time, customer expectation, service standards and shipment sensitivity to focus on. This makes it imperative to have oversight across the end-to-end logistics cycle, as well as a detailed view on individual elements and support activities.

It’s a difficult juggling act. But help is at hand in the form of data. And that’s something the logistics, parcel and postal sector produces in abundance. The challenge is to harness the raw data and transform it into insights and actionable information.

Businesses that take control of their data, organise it, manage it and put it to work reap huge benefits. From KPI reporting through to demand forecasting, workflow automation and decision support systems that everyone can take advantage of according to their needs.

There are four main categories of Data Analytics tools that can help logistics organisations gain a competitive advantage; descriptive, diagnostic, predictive and prescriptive.

Descriptive level data informs on what’s currently happening in your business – or what has happened. Great for reviewing and managing key performance indicators (KPIs), highlighting trends and identifying problems.

Diagnostic analysis assesses why things happened. If we understand the problem it’s easier to identify solutions.

Predictive analytics uses data science techniques and artificial intelligence (AI) to determine what will happen. This helps with a range of tasks such as demand forecasting, dynamic pricing, route planning, asset life-cycle management and contingency planning.

Prescriptive analytics involves using data to determine how to make something happen. This calls for integrating data across all areas and levels of the business, making it easier for people to make decisions and carry out their daily work – wherever their role within the organisation.

Choosing which tool to use is dependent upon your business objective, scale of the challenge or opportunity and budget. Sometimes a simple KPI report is all that’s needed to give you 20/20 vision while other situations require complex algorithms. If you’d like to discuss further, we’d be happy to help you decide the best approach for your business.

Photo by Marcin Jozwiak on Unsplash