As the COVID pandemic has unfolded over the last year, businesses in virtually every vertical have undergone significant digital transformation efforts, and adopted more sophisticated technologies. And at the forefront of these upgrades has been AI.
AI is arguably the most hyped vertical in technology today — and for good reason. Set to generate over $500 billion in revenue by 2024, the AI revolution will completely reshape the business world as we know it. And while much has been made about AI’s impact on life sciences, retail and other industries, slow-moving categories are also beginning to successfully adopt it. This is particularly true in logistics and freight procurement.
Here are a few ways that AI is impacting these spaces.
Getting data ops in order
Modern logistics and freight procurement businesses sit on top of a huge amount of data. Yet many either don’t utilize it properly, or rely on outdated methods to make sense of it. This isn’t good enough for companies that are looking to stay competitive today. In this regard, AI is proving to be a game changer.
From making business intelligence decisions more agile to ensuring data is clean and ready to be analyzed, AI is fundamentally changing how shippers and carriers process, synthesize and act on their data.
Transparency in procurement
In logistics and freight, finding alternate carriers — which is needed when a shippers’ primary carrier can’t fulfill a specific shipment — is a major pain point for shippers and carriers today. For decades, finding an alternate carrier required shippers and carriers to rely on an opaque middle men brokers market that offered little transparency and sky-high costs. Luckily, AI is making these middle men obsolete.
Through the use of AI, shippers and carriers can now work directly with one another to facilitate alternate procurement. For example, AI provides shippers and carriers with the real-time market data they need to find the best alternate possible, and at the fairest market rate. This means shippers can save millions a year in surcharges, while carriers can ensure they’re the best fit for a given load.
Better performance
No matter how much preparation and forethought shippers and carriers put into their execution strategies, hiccups are inevitable. Through the adoption of AI, however, shippers and carriers can mitigate these disruptions as best as possible and adapt their short-, medium- and long-term plans to avoid similar issues in the future.
For example, prior to AI logistics, companies would have to rely on a great deal of manual leg work in order to reroute due to disruptions like accidents or construction projects. With AI, logistics companies can get real-time route updates and tweak trucking routing far more scientifically — and quickly — than ever before. This means shippers have much greater transparency in terms of where their shipments are, and carriers stand a better chance of delivering products on-time.
The growth and impact that AI is having in today’s business world is truly exciting. And if progress within the space continues at the same rate, AI stands to have huge benefits throughout the business world — particularly in the traditionally slow-moving sectors — in the years ahead.
About the Author
Oleg Yanchyk is CIO of Sleek Technologies. He has over 15 years experiences in logistics and supply chain project management and sales experience, acquiring expertise in reducing non-value-added expenditures, formulating and implementing winning demand generation strategies, and aligning cross-functional teams to generate revenue and achieve organizational objectives. He has led a sales floor of over 100 associates and developed cutting-edge data-driven solutions to match supply and demand.
Sign up for the free insideBIGDATA newsletter.
Join us on Twitter: @InsideBigData1 – https://twitter.com/InsideBigData1
Speak Your Mind