Transport is a crucial part of the supply chain, and its cost has become a major concern for companies, particularly in a global context marked by soaring fuel and spare-parts prices.
Transport management: greater challenges than ever!
The importance of transport management varies with the nature of a company's activity, as it can represent a source of margin for carriers or a cost centre for shippers. To improve transport management, economic operators must focus on different factors according to their perspective.
·For carriers: they must seek in particular to control their costs and margins (depreciation, maintenance, operations, etc.), strengthen real-time visibility into their resources (vehicles, drivers, spare-parts inventory), collaborate with carrier partners, anticipate journeys with no added value, control billing elements and adjust their rates dynamically according to the price of fuel.
·For shippers: they must know their carriers better, select the most suitable one in terms of cost, lead time and service quality, and gain visibility into transport operations so they can make the right decisions.
Transport digitalisation, particularly through specialised Transport Management System (TMS) solutions, addresses these needs.
A TMS is not limited to delivery tracking and traceability!
A TMS can structure costs, missions, resources, maintenance and analysis according to the selected modules, data and interfaces. Effects on costs, margin and agility must be defined and measured in each context.
Financing: a major obstacle to the growth of transport microbusinesses and SMEs in Morocco!
In Morocco, despite the emergence of national champions and the establishment of international operators, the national ecosystem consists mainly of microbusinesses and SMEs that lack the critical mass or financing capacity to invest in digitalisation. Faced with these sustainability, survival and competitiveness challenges, mechanisms and resources must be put in place to help these operators increase their maturity and professionalise their service offerings, particularly through digitalisation, which remains beyond the reach of self-financing.
