Descartes: Fuelling the Fleet Industry

Edward J. Ryan, CEO

A poorly performing fleet is a challenge for any company. Despite enforcement of new regulations, inappropriate time management software, poor visibility and ineffectual asset utilization are the factors that drive to escalated costs, and other impediments in fleet management industry. This occurred as fleet management executives failed to comprehend the dynamics behind the global fleet market pertaining to transportation planning and execution, visibility, tracking, and performance management.

Founded in 1981, Descartes (NASDAQ:DSGX) has over thirty years of experience in fleet management system, and has accelerated value for its customers by increasing operational efficiency, reducing complexity, decreasing costs, and ensuring a better customer service. As a renowned company that has an incredibly broad array of advanced capabilities to power the largest logistics operations in the world, Descartes ensures its modular solution can be implemented in weeks rather than months.

With visibility, tracking, and performance management as its key features in an effective supply chain strategy, Descartes enables companies to improve logistics efficiency with a single integrated view of shipments, inventory, cross boarder compliance status, and delivery performance. While the integration with the Descartes Global logistics Network enables users benefit from ready connections to carriers, its ability to track and analyze bestow customers with unparalleled delivery track records in fleet management industry. Leveraging Descartes Global logistics Network, enterprises are able to track and analyze shipment data in the form of electronic messages such as purchase orders acknowledgements, advanced shipment notices, border clearances, carrier status/proof of delivery and more. In addition, it also enables clients obtain a comprehensive view of the product delivery process from purchase order to warehouse receipt.

When enterprises take care of the visibility and performance management, however, they disregard the significance of transportation planning, and execution. In current scenario, transporataion planning and execution plays a pivotal role in fleet management, enabling fleet executives to optimize asset utilization, and real-time information sharing. Enlightening clients about the strategic importance of transportation optimization, Descartes arms its clients with fast and efficient planning algorithms that focus on keeping the warehouse picking and the freight moving.

Whether you need a quick fix for a transportation issue or an end-to-end solution, the Descartes transportation management suite can help

By leveraging its 30 years of proven experience, the company has built solid optimized planning, consolidation, and tendering capabilities that help clients determine the right consolidation options to reduce freight spend while meeting service requirements. “In speaking with customers over the last few months, we have seen a significant increase in transportation teams taking more control of their inbound freight,” adds Alan Dunkerley, VP, Product management, Descartes.

As coordinating multiple parties with multiple systems has historically made retail inbound logistics inefficient and hard to manage, retailers lack information and material visibility across their supply base. It leads to shipment delays, supply chain disruptions, and revenue losses that can severely affect a global business. Breaking this paradigm of having to coordinate multiple parties with multiple systems, Descartes has brought forth logistics flow control , a next generation retail inbound logistics transportation management solution , that ensures rapid return-on-investment. Integrated with multi-party Microsoft- based cloud solution, it enables logistics Flow Control, retailers, suppliers, carriers and brokers to use the same solution to manage the end-to-end purchase order management process. In addition, it further extends its capabilities by improving control of inventory in motion, reducing purchase order cycle time; transportation costs; inventory carrying costs, and custom filing fines. By leveraging data across all of the parties involved in the inbound supply chain, Descartes enables customers simultaneously manage their commercial, logistics and customs filing process.

Optimizing output from telematics, and route planning system enables fleet managers to unleash the full potential of fleet operations. In present day fleet industry, telematics powered fleet management operations offer a number of smart features that the fleet managers can use to empower the business. It also has the proven capability of making fleet efficient and productive by enabling fleet managers to see the routes that the drivers take when they are using the vehicle. With integrated route planning, route execution, mobile applications and vehicle telematics, Descartes proffers the industry’s most comprehensive fleet and mobile resource management solutions. While Descartes’ Routing, Mobile & Telematics suite supports the full, closed-loop process associated with route planning, route execution, driver and vehicle performance, it also helps deliver a true command of operations for improving the delivery schedule. It includes route planning, dispatching and GPS tracking, mobile applications, vehicle telematics, fleet/driver, compliance and performance analytics.

Descartes’ solutions have been deployed by clients from various industries including transportation and logistics services, manufacturing, retail, distribution, business services, and public sector. Besides, to automate and standardize business process, Descartes brings forth a Designer partner program to ensure that logistics-intensive organizations can access all the multi-product and multi-channel services they need for business success. Going further, the company is focused on developing future-ready solutions that exceed the capabilities of fleet operations.

- Anand Jayakumar
February 22, 2017