Management briefing

3 priorities for logistics

planners for the
remainder of 2015

LOG I S T I C S
3 PRIORITIES FOR LOGISTICS PLANNERS FOR THE REMAINDER OF 2015
LOGISTICS | MANAGEMENT BRIEFING
To deliver the most value from logistics, you need to
optimize the use of your assets by matching them
efficiently with the demands of your market. To meet
the many elements of that challenge, practically
every logistics business has turned to transportation
management software, which has vastly improved
operational efficiency across the board.
2 SUPPLY CHAIN PLANNING & OPTIMIZATION
In today’s dynamic and competitive market however,
many companies are falling behind. To get out
in front and stay there, you need to realize the
potential of next-generation technology and focus
on three priorities for the last half of 2015.
Thanks to leading-edge technology from Quintiq,
logistics leaders have gone beyond typical TMS
capabilities to realize these three goals:
 3 PRIORITIES FOR LOGISTICS PLANNERS FOR THE REMAINDER OF 2015
1 Mastery of complexity
and change
Given the equipment, material, and personnel you
need for your operations, nothing will bring you closer
to success than mastery of complexity and change.
Which routes save you the most on fuel? Best meet
customer expectations? Minimize empty miles? How
quickly can you respond to upstream delays or traffic
congestion while sticking to your plans?
To master complexity and change, you need to first
identify where and when to access your most valuable
data. Collecting operational and financial data, just
because you can, will never improve your business.
Determine which data best indicates performance
toward strategic goals, when that data is most
meaningful, how it best fits into your decision-making
system, and how to see it from the perspectives of
planners, managers, and executives.
LOGISTICS | MANAGEMENT BRIEFING
By understanding the data you collect, you have
visibility to everything that makes a difference to your
business. Having a centralized view of your operations,
as opposed to manually consolidating reports from
disparate departments and geographies, gives you an
accurate picture of what your resources are doing and
where your demand is coming from. Full visibility helps
you master complexity by providing continuous feedback
to planners. This enables them to plan the best routes
and quickly adjust to contingencies in ways that meet or
exceed your KPIs.
Masters of logistics complexity and change can
ask “what-if” questions. They can develop multiple
scenarios in their planning systems and evaluate them
in terms of KPIs such as cost of operations, service
levels or waiting times, and make optimal decisions in
long- and short-term planning.
SUPPLY CHAIN PLANNING & OPTIMIZATION 3
3 PRIORITIES FOR LOGISTICS PLANNERS FOR THE REMAINDER OF 2015
LOGISTICS | MANAGEMENT BRIEFING
2 Leadership in Integrated
Business Planning (IBP)
The same steps that enable mastery of complexity
and change can also help you become a leader in IBP.
Taking those steps enables a strategic perspective that
integrates logistics operations, financials, comparative
strategies and supply chain collaboration. This gives
you visibility to how decisions contribute to KPI
performance.
IBP is an ongoing management practice that
expresses operational plans in terms of budgets and
financial outcomes, and continuously references
KPIs to ensure that your plans are aligned with
corporate strategy. It uses scenario analysis and
real-time information to reduce costs and design your
operations according to a hierarchy of business goals
or rules.
4 SUPPLY CHAIN PLANNING & OPTIMIZATION
IBP involves a cyclical review process that
incorporates operations, demand, supply, and
management:
1 The operations review develops decisions
concerning your service portfolio and innovations
2 The demand review builds a balanced demand
plan by integrating forecast demand with sales and
marketing input
3 The supply review produces decisions concerning
fleet capacity and service offerings
4 The management review reconciles alternate plans
and scenarios, and provides input for the next review
of operations
While small companies might be able to achieve their
goals with spreadsheets and whiteboards, planners
who face the challenges of complexity and change
need a solution that can refer to KPIs, evaluate plans
for their financial implications, and continuously
compare operational decisions to corporate goals.
 3 PRIORITIES FOR LOGISTICS PLANNERS FOR THE REMAINDER OF 2015
3 Orientation of operations
toward demand
Planning your operations on a foundation of demand
leads to a better understanding of customer
requirements, which in turn allows you to predict
those requirements with sharper precision and
manage them with agility and flexibility. Gaining that
understanding, however, depends on technology that
can provide granular visibility across your operations
and the analytical capability to reveal the meaning
in your data. With that insight, you can identify the
markets where your resources provide the most value,
ways to deploy those resources most effectively, and
which customers value your services the most.
Demand-driven logistics begin with forecasts based
on historical data, but given current volatility in
economic conditions and market demand, historical
analyses can take you only so far. A solution that can
incorporate collaborative input allows you to factor in
LOGISTICS | MANAGEMENT BRIEFING
market disruptions and evaluate the long-term effect
of such disruptions. It can also help you identify areas
where your past forecasts have been especially strong
or weak and give you a view of the normal variation
in your demand. Such insights can drive decisions on
whether to purchase or lease additional resources to
match your capacity to demand.
Effectively orienting your operations toward demand will
allow you to deal with and manage market fluctuations.
It will also enable you to investigate anomalies to
determine whether they are short-lived or predictors of
a changing market. You will be able to evaluate different
scenarios for dealing with changing demand and make
decisions that align best with your strategic goals.
SUPPLY CHAIN PLANNING & OPTIMIZATION 5
 3 PRIORITIES FOR LOGISTICS PLANNERS FOR THE REMAINDER OF 2015

LOGISTICS | MANAGEMENT BRIEFING

Alignment is
essential
Realizing the benefits of these three goals within
the next two quarters of 2015 depends on having
a focused corporate strategy and aligning your
logistics operations with that strategy.

Prioritize your strategy in terms of minimizing cost,

providing value and increasing customer satisfaction.
Deploy technology that can incorporate contingencies
into the planning process, and roll out the technology
in a way that allows you to evaluate its effectiveness
in terms of cost and performance. Given that
foundation, you will confidently drive your market-
leading logistics solution to the top of your industry.

To find out more, visit www.quintiq.com or contact

us today.

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Used with permission under license to Quintiq, Inc. Email: info@quintiq.com | Web: www.quintiq.com

SUPPLY CHAIN PLANNING & OPTIMIZATION 6