In the logistics industry, change is always near. At Evincible Solutions, we provide software services to Logistic service providers, so we know that one’s approach changes often. It’s important for organizations to be agile and they need to have a proper response towards change. We can see this clearly considering the coronavirus pandemic.   Before, disruptive changes took to time to execute, but the coronavirus has forced organizations to make quick and extensive changes fast.  As an IT minded organization, it helps you anticipate such changes, improve your services, and makes you more agile.  It doesn’t stop there. Besides, as an IT minded organization, the choices made by you will affect the execution of your organization and deal with the changes during this time. So, act well. 

MAKING CHOICES  

 Being an IT minded organization gives you the advantage against your 3PL competitors.  Yet, that doesn’t automatically mean you have a lithe organization.  It doesn’t mean you have phenomenal performance or capable services either.  You also need to have the proper decisions on which partners to work with, which processes best optimize your business, and choose the right software.  With all these choices, you must consider: Does it improve our company performance?  Does it make it more agile?  Does it provide better customer service? 

A MATCHING SOFTWARE SOLUTION  

Your software is where things start.  To become agile as a company, your software must be agile. With new innovations, there must be growth.  You need to setup your solution in a way so that adjustments can be made quickly.  Preferably, this should be done by people in your organization rather than others.  This should be done in a way that actual programming is not needed.  An unmaintainable solution would be the result of that.  Further, that would increase your dependence on suppliers or programmers, to be more flexible.  For this reason, ‘no-code’, and ‘slow-code,’ solutions were founded, with which organizations can make solutions for processes in their company independently.  A lot of these no-code and low-code solutions are widely applicable and they are often generic.  In fact, there is nothing in the basis, along with the downsides of the many possibilities; you will have to start from scratch.    In our experience, companies struggle to realize the solution.  People lose themselves in suboptimal solutions which inhibit them from going live.  That’s why it’s important to choose a solution that matches your active branch.  This way, you won’t have to decide obvious matters, since this would have been done already by others. 

AN AGILE SOLUTION  

Keeping that in mind, we setup our solution in a way that was similar. Company processes should be shaped easily in the end, and it must be relevant at the time to your wish.  It must be possible to adjust with dependence on third parties or minimal effort; without developing customized software or necessitate developers. 

INTEGRATED COMMUNICATION BRINGS YOU IN FRONT  

Your software needs to have the ability to communicate with other systems as well.  Today, we see fully integrated supply chains along with more and more systems that are well integrated.  Information has a growing role, so in order to properly compete, your organization needs to have proper communication; if you can excel in communication with other systems, the further ahead you’ll be. 

ROLE OF INFORMATION  

What’s also important to gain insights into organization performance and providing customers with the proper information they request is the openness of systems.  Even better: surprise customers with relevant data which they haven’t requested.  With predicting data’s role in the future, like artificial intelligence and machine learning, the importance of data and technology is clear. 

WHO DO YOU WORK WITH?  

The parties you choose to work with is also very important.  In these times, you can’t do everything on your own anymore.  You must choose what you hand to other parties and what decisions you make yourself.  This relates with choosing the right software solution.  What do you handle yourself and what do you outsource?   You may integrate your systems with EDI, optimize company processes by yourself, or manage company information via BI tools, all depending on your business type. 

GROW IN YOUR OWN ORGANIZATION  

Even with the right software partner, there are still ways to go. You might have a hypermodern software, but without optimizing your processes continuously with the shifting circumstances, it will be difficult to reach higher execution.  To put this into perspective, you might have the most up-to-date laptop, but when the only use you put to it is as a calculator, an abacus could have done the same thing.  Keep optimizing your processes, and that is a process that is continuous as well. 

FOCUS WITHIN YOUR ORGANIZATION  

You are IT minded, you chose the right software solution and you invested in processes to take your business to the next level. Nice! Yet, another important choice to make is focus.  As any organization, not only a logistics service provider, being active on all fronts is almost impossible, so focus is key. Instead of aiming for a lot of things in small portions, excel in one thing; your choices are important.  The daily choices you make are the biggest traps. Often, such decisions are by employees that don’t envision the big picture, so they don’t correctly see what is important. Limitations and focus are the basis to success. 

AIM FOR WHAT IS STRICTLY NECESSARY  

The way Evincible Solutions implements things is this: we have a clear goal and are focused on it.  Our consultants focus from the start of the project to do so; they focus on matters that can support the primary processes with what is minimally necessary.  By doing that swiftly, there is lots of time left to focus on finishing touches and extra things during the same time period. 

FOCUS ON THE ESSENCE  

Focus on cases which add value along with striving for change and growth.  Ask yourself: Am I hitting my foot with the pickaxe or making my organization more agile with this adjustment? Does this make it easier for fewer people to do more, making things quicker and more efficient along with increasing my company performance?  In other words, choices must be made, and change is important.  Making the right choice is up to you. We wish you good luck!