Running a food-related business means you deal with incredibly tight profit margins – tighter than most other industries. This leaves very little room for inefficiencies in your fulfillment processes.
To keep your business as profitable as possible, it’s essential that you leverage all the data available to you in order to streamline your operations and enhance the efficiency of your operations. Here are some ways you can do that.
Using Multiple Data Sources
Thanks to the ease with which data can be collected and transmitted, you’ve got a wide variety of transportation and logistics data points coming from a wealth of sources. Collecting and making sense of this data allows you to gain a holistic picture of your operations, end to end, and make any necessary adjustments.
If you and the vendors you partner with are collecting data, you’ll be able to view and analyze real-time information from steamship lines, rail, truckload, intermodal, and drayage operators, allowing you to make quick decisions and gain historical insights that improves your strategic decision-making.
Organizing Your Data
Collecting data without organizing it meaningfully is a huge waste of your time, resources, and money. A big jumble of numbers isn’t going to help anyone, and you need a system that collects and organizes the data you have so that you can use it to draw up reports, track trends, and make decisions.
Whenever you’re able, use automated tools rather than manual data entry. This removes a lot of room for human error, and it’s also less expensive over time than all the man hours you’d spend plugging numbers into a spreadsheet.
Additionally, an important part of data organization is being able to know (and do away with) data that’s irrelevant. Too much data muddies the waters so you have to wade through a lot of extra to get to what’s really important and relevant to your needs.
Developing standards for what data you need to keep and how it should be organized will go a long way toward helping you make quick, educated decisions to protect your business’s profits.
Prioritizing Data Collection
Rather than treating the data you collect on your transportation and logistics as something that’s nice to have, prioritize it and invest in tools that make the process faster and, over time, less expensive.
To make sure your data offers you the most value, it’s essential to invest in real-time dashboards, analytics, and reporting so that you can analyze and visualize all the information that moves through your logistics process with ease. Automated tools and programs built specifically for these purposes are far superior to attempting to collect and analyze this information on your own, giving you better insights and leading to more informed, profitable decisions.
Your Food Logistics Partner on the East Coast
At Cannon Hill Logistics, we know how difficult it can be to operate a food-based business on thin profit margins. You need all the help you can get to create a supply chain that works for you instead of against you, allowing your business to grow and thrive. That’s where our experienced third-party logistics team comes in. We can help you manage every aspect of your logistics, whether you need help with one piece or end-to-end service. Contact us for a quote!