Transportation Management Systems Selection

This guide is designed to help organizations select the best transportation management software for their unique business requirements.

Overview

A transportation management system (TMS) helps companies move freight from origin to destination efficiently, reliably, and cost effectively.  Today’s more capable TMS solutions offer a strong ROI.  Primarily, a TMS can save companies money by lowering their freight spend.  ARC’s survey-based research found that respondents indicated freight savings of approximately 8 percent with the use of a TMS application.  Of these savings, nearly 60 percent of users indicated that less than 10 percent of the net savings were absorbed by the TMS.  These freight savings can be attributed to network design, load consolidation, multi-stop route optimization improved data for procurement, and freight audit.

This supplier selection guide includes over 150 criteria that can be used in selecting a supplier, market shares, and other important information about the market.  [ Learn more about Transportation Management Systems. ]

Transportation Management Systems Selection Strategic Issues

The following are a few of the strategic issues specifically covered in the Transportation Management Systems Selection Guide:

Research Transportation Management Systems Purchases

Make sure to do your due diligence when shopping for a transportation management system solution.  This means understanding how that specific solution will meet your changing needs.  ARC offers a supplier selection guide for TMS that is configurable.  The guide offers nearly 100 features and functions.  Prospective buyers of TMS can delete criteria that do not apply to them, add criteria that are missing, and weight the remaining criteria in a way that best addresses the needs of their business. 

Minimize Customizations

Modern transportation management system solutions offered by the leading suppliers are highly configurable.  Generally, there are rarely good reasons to customize the base code.  Those customers that do end up paying for the customization experience the headaches associated with longer implementations and increased difficulty in upgrading their solutions.  There is a much better return on investment (ROI) from going with the base package, even if that means modifying existing processes.

Look at Alternatives Such as Managed Transportation Services (MTS)

When companies are looking to achieve lower transportation costs while maintaining or improving service levels, a core decision is whether they should implement a transportation management system and improve their internal capabilities or outsource the transportation function.  ARC has also developed a low-cost supplier selection guide for the Managed Transportation Services market. 

Additional Transportation Management Systems Strategic Issues

ARC has been covering the transportation management system market for close to 20 years.  We have done market research studies, ROI research, case studies, and examined closely the ROI of competing and complementary solutions.  Based on that history, this report can help answer strategic questions such as: 

• What providers have the largest market shares in a given industry or region?
• What specific criteria can be used to judge a TMS solution’s routing capabilities? Business Intelligence? Procurement? Visibility? And so on?
• What are the key strengths and challenges of over 35 of the key suppliers in this market?