How software changes relationships in sales
IT-supported pricing with standards changes the information process and structures the negotiations
by Johannes Wahllich
Whether privately or in the company: Each of us regularly buys products or services. For most of us, a similar process takes place unconsciously. We think about what we need. Quantity, price and quality, by when. We get information from newspapers, magazines and the internet, ask friends for recommendations.
For larger purchases, we summarize all factors on a piece of paper or in a table to be able to compare different options. There are also many softer criteria: How did I like the market stand and the product presentation, how understandable was the offer? And above all: How likeable did I find the consultant? Social relationships also play a major role in decisions.
This process is similar when purchasing transport services. It is important for shippers that their goods reach the customer undamaged, on time and at the right cost. Together with the softer criteria such as the relationship between shippers and logistics service providers, it quickly becomes clear why it is not that easy to compare offers with each other. Therefore, a certain standardization helps.
High communication effort
The inquiry process starts with basic preliminary considerations: What information and specifications are to be sent to the service provider for a transport inquiry? Important cornerstones are, for example, the type of package and goods, dimensions, weights, Incoterm, dangerous goods, safety, routing, loading information, currencies, and pick-up and delivery times. In addition, there is stackability, temperature control, value of goods, special requirements and very general information such as transport volume, shipment structure or departure or departure frequency. A structured, checklist-like process with validation of the entered values can already be a guide and save buyers and service providers a lot of unnecessary communication.
Once the necessary parameters have been defined and the inquiries have been sent, shippers receive offers from their carriers. Usually as a PDF or Excel file, e-mail text or by telephone. These offers are difficult for many shippers or can only be compared with a great deal of specialist knowledge.
In view of the multitude of factors that influence the price, it is understandable that offers have a high information content and that you have to deal with them thoroughly. Oversimplifying them would not adequately reflect the services actually associated with them and would therefore lead to incorrect award decisions. Nevertheless, given the complexity and need for explanation of transport offers, it is possible to give offers a basic structure that makes them comparable. This structure should be understood as a kind of mediator that leaves room for differentiation and individuality at the same time.
Communication via too many mailboxes, distributed storage locations and people is inefficient and no longer up to date.
Purchasing transport services involves a lot of communication. First in advance and when coordinating the services to be offered, then when comparing and selecting the offers or making the award decision. On the shipper side, several people or teams from the areas of logistics, shipping, purchasing or export/sales are usually involved. If the communication in this process is distributed across several mailboxes, people, storage locations (Excel, folders or similar) and even departments and locations, it quickly becomes inefficient and is actually no longer up to date.
flexibility and simplicity
When preparing the offer, teams from the service provider’s internal sales force, field service, scheduling and operations work together. They can often already create their individual offers from their own systems. If these teams process inquiries together via a central system, this will certainly mean a changeover for them and in many cases probably also a small amount of additional work, which is to be recognised.
Therefore, some factors are important to support their cooperation: The technical operation and input in a central system must be simple. In concrete terms, this means, for example, that you do not have to fight your way through a desert of forms, collaborative work is possible and no installation or registration is required. In addition, no costs may arise. It is also important that, despite structural standardization, it remains possible to create individual and flexible offers. This also includes the opportunity to present your individual offer document.
Direct personal contact remains important for shippers as buyers and for logistics service providers on the supply side. Shippers need and want it because they want safe, reliable and cost-effective transport. Logistics service providers would also like to explain their services in the best possible way during a conversation. Therefore, there is an important difference between solutions that moderate the process on the one hand and marketplaces, freight exchanges and platforms on the other. The latter change existing social relationships to a greater extent, for example by suggesting new contacts or actively intervening in the matching and allocation.
The purchase of transport services as a process is so complex that the use of software solutions makes sense and is up-to-date. They therefore offer added value because they implement the process very leanly and optimize it with a checklist character. In addition, they create a good comparability of the services with a high degree of individualization. An application should be easy to implement and enable collaboration across teams, departments, locations and national companies. Shippers thus bring structure and traceability to the transport assignment process and secure relevant process know-how.
In addition to the software, the direct, personal exchange and the intact social relationship between the shipper and the logistics service provider remain important. The IT support creates more freedom for everyone involved to exchange information about content-related services and further operational optimizations in the supply chain. The process gets better for both sides. (loe)
first appeared under: https://www.dvz.de/rubriken/digitalisierung/detail/news/software-veraendert-die-beziehungen-im-verkauf.html