Collaborating with different company partners is critical to long-term success. Anyone who has worked on a high school or college group project knows that at first, learning to trust team members who each have different strengths can be difficult, however the end-result of the comradery is greater than what one person could have done on their own.
Aristotle said it best that “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts,” meaning that the collective value our output of individual components working together is greater than the stand-alone value of each of the pieces.
Through the lens of e-commerce and supply chain, this principle is clear. An entire supply chain and its power created through collaboration and alliances is amazing. Particularly, it is the human and technological connections between the physical components that makes a world of difference. Without those powerful, unseen connections, physical infrastructure would not be nearly as valuable.
For growing e-commerce companies specifically, you have likely handled many major business components in-house, but with COVID-19 and explosive growth in online and D2C shopping, your seams are starting to burst. But what should you outsource or where should you build collaborative relationships?
Transportation Management System (TMS)
Transportation management systems are a launching pad for growth as they help you build efficiencies around order processing. Are you manually creating shipping labels for shipments? Are you choosing personalized business rules and preferences for every new order? Are you manually pulling orders from each different marketplace that you sell on?
A transportation management system helps you batch shipment labels, set pre-selected preferences that apply by default to shipments, and pull all orders from all sales platforms into one concise location. Transportation management systems also help you choose the right service level and transit time that is best for your budget and desired delivery speed.
Warehouse Management System (WMS)
Warehouse management systems are ideal for small startup businesses that operate in a makeshift fulfillment situation (garage, spare bedroom, basement, etc.) or for growing businesses who choose to operate their own warehouse space. It is extremely hard to have an accurate picture of your inventory, create efficient warehouse practices, and scale your business when your inventory is not precisely monitored and tracked.
If you feel like both a transportation management system and a warehouse management system could help you, good news! A transportation warehouse management system (TWMS) is one of the latest innovations that have entered the logistics technology space, as it combines both technologies into one seamless platform.
Fulfillment
If you are a larger e-commerce business and sourcing and maintaining your own software for transportation and warehouse management sounds like something you would like to completely hand off to a trusted partner, a full-service warehouse partner is the best option for you. This type of partner takes the guess-work and day-to-day operations of fulfilling and shipping orders off your hands, so you can focus on the product and marketing side of growing your business.
As your business evolves and grows, so should your partners! Visit ShipCaddie TWMS on LinkedIn for more content on transportation and warehousing.
Related Terms:
- Transportation management system benefits
- Warehouse inventory management system
- Transportation management solutions
- Warehouse management solutions
- 3PL
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