Logistics Archives – unicommerce.com

Logistics vs Supply Chain Management: Key Components, Benefits, Comparison

Wed, 18 Jan 2023 08:56:08 +0000

Table of Contents:

Introduction
Definition
Key Components of Logistics and Supply Chain Management
Benefits of Effective Logistics and Supply Chain Management
Comparison: Logistics vs Supply Chain Management
Summary

In today’s globalized world, efficient logistics and supply chain management are crucial for businesses to stay competitive. The success of any organization heavily relies on its ability to deliver products or services to customers in a timely, cost-effective, and sustainable manner. This on-page blog will delve into the intricacies of logistics and supply chain management processes, highlighting their key components and their significance in optimizing operations.

What is Logistics and Supply Chain Management

Logistics encompasses the planning, implementation, and control of the flow of goods, services, and information between the point of origin and the point of consumption. On the other hand, supply chain management refers to the coordination and management of all activities involved in procuring raw materials, transforming them into finished products, and delivering them to customers.

Key Components of Logistics and Supply Chain Management

Procurement: The process of sourcing and acquiring raw materials, components, or finished products from suppliers. Effective procurement ensures the availability of quality inputs at competitive prices.
Inventory Management: Involves optimizing the quantity, location, and timing of inventory to meet customer demand while minimizing carrying costs and stockouts. It requires balancing supply and demand uncertainties.
Warehousing and Storage: Warehouses play a pivotal role in storing and managing inventory. They facilitate order fulfillment, enable consolidation and sorting, and provide value-added services such as packaging and labeling.
Transportation: The movement of goods between various points in the supply chain. Selecting the appropriate transportation mode, route planning, and carrier selection are critical to ensure timely delivery and cost optimization.
Demand Planning and Forecasting: Accurate demand forecasting helps organizations plan their production and inventory levels effectively. It involves analysing historical data, market trends, and customer insights to predict future demand.
Production and Operations Management: This encompasses the planning, scheduling, and control of production processes to ensure the efficient utilization of resources and timely production of goods or services.
Information Technology and Data Analytics: Leveraging technology and data analytics tools allows organizations to enhance visibility, track shipments, optimize routes, and improve overall supply chain performance.

Benefits of Effective Logistics and Supply Chain Management

Cost Reduction: Streamlining processes, optimizing transportation routes, and minimizing inventory levels can lead to significant cost savings.
Enhanced Customer Service: Efficient logistics ensures on-time delivery, accurate order fulfillment, and proactive communication, resulting in improved customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Competitive Advantage: Effective supply chain management can be a source of competitive differentiation, enabling organizations to respond quickly to market changes and customer demands.
Sustainability and Environmental Impact: Optimizing logistics processes can lead to reduced carbon emissions, improved fuel efficiency, and minimized environmental impact, contributing to sustainability goals.
Collaboration and Integration: Building strong relationships with suppliers, customers, and partners fosters collaboration and facilitates seamless integration across the supply chain, resulting in improved coordination and efficiency.

Supply Chain Management and Logistics are closely related concepts, but they have distinct focuses within the realm of operations and business management. Let’s explore the differences between the two:

Difference between Logistics and Supply Chain Management

Definition:

Logistics: Logistics refers to the specific activities involved in the movement, storage, and flow of goods or materials from the point of origin to the point of consumption. It focuses primarily on the physical aspects of transportation, warehousing, inventory management, and order fulfillment.
Supply Chain Management: Supply Chain Management (SCM) encompasses the end-to-end coordination and integration of all activities involved in sourcing, procurement, production, and distribution of goods or services. It includes planning, execution, control, and monitoring of activities across multiple organizations and stakeholders to deliver value to customers.

Scope:

Logistics: Logistics has a narrower focus and deals with the operational aspects of managing the physical flow of goods, including transportation, warehousing, packaging, and inventory management. It is more concerned with the execution of specific tasks within the supply chain.
Supply Chain Management: SCM has a broader scope and encompasses the entire network of organizations, processes, and activities involved in delivering products or services to end customers. It includes strategic planning, coordination, and collaboration with suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, retailers, and customers.

Integration:

Logistics: Logistics focuses on the efficient management of specific activities related to transportation, storage, and inventory. It plays a critical role in supporting the overall supply chain objectives by ensuring timely delivery, minimizing costs, and optimizing resource utilization.
Supply Chain Management: SCM emphasizes the integration and coordination of various functions and processes within and across organizations. It involves aligning the goals, activities, and information flow between different stakeholders to optimize overall supply chain performance.

Timeframe:

Logistics: Logistics operates within a shorter timeframe, typically dealing with day-to-day operations and tactical activities. It focuses on the execution of tasks to ensure smooth flow, accurate inventory management, and timely order fulfillment.
Supply Chain Management: SCM takes a long-term perspective and involves strategic decision-making, such as network design, supplier selection, and demand forecasting. It addresses the entire lifecycle of a product or service, from raw materials sourcing to final customer delivery.

Customer Focus:

Logistics: Logistics contributes to customer satisfaction by ensuring that products are delivered on time and in good condition. It focuses on meeting customer expectations regarding order fulfillment, transportation reliability, and product availability.
Supply Chain Management: SCM places a strong emphasis on understanding customer needs, demand patterns, and market dynamics. It aims to create value for customers by delivering the right products, at the right time, in the right quantities, and at the right cost.

Conclusion:

Logistics and supply chain management are vital components of modern business operations. By strategically managing the flow of goods, services, and information, organizations can achieve cost efficiencies, enhance customer satisfaction, and gain a competitive edge. The ever-evolving landscape of logistics and supply chain management requires continuous adaptation to technological advancements and industry trends. Embracing innovative practices and leveraging data-driven insights will empower organizations to optimize their logistics processes and navigate the complexities of the global marketplace.

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Recover from the Corona Effect: 4 Key Strategies for eCommerce and Retail Brands

Thu, 09 Apr 2020 16:15:04 +0000

Amidst the Coronavirus outbreak, the survival of businesses has become the top priority and everything else right from strategizing growth or increasing presence in the market has taken a back seat at the moment.

Affected services may take some time to get back to the normal cycle of business even after the lockdown period is over, however, it is evident that the graph will rise once people are back to their daily routines, not being restricted to stay home anymore. And to strategize around such possible behaviour of consumers becomes highly important.

Road to Recovery for eCommerce and Retail Industry Through Automation

It is normal for you to look for answers on how to proceed once the lockdown is over and we at Unicommerce have constantly been monitoring the situation, taking updates on all new establishments, figuring out ways by which SMEs, brands and e-commerce retailers can cope up with the effects and today we are here with 4 key strategies for you to effectively plan out a future roadmap of your business.

Read: How Oryvo Achieved Maximized Efficiency and Minimized Workload with the Robust Technology Solutions of Unicommerce!

1. Full Automation for Supply Chain Operations

Complete automation of supply chain operations has always been a top priority for most businesses to speed up processes and reach exponential growth, but now it has turned into a necessity.

The most important aspect of getting e-commerce businesses back on track will be strengthening of your warehouse and logistics processes. Automation of warehouse operations and real-time updates of the delivery progress helps companies focus on rapid actions ensuring there are no cases of out-of-stock items or delayed deliveries.

Constant checks on stock-keeping units, SKUs, maintenance and uninterrupted order processing are all positive aspects of onboarding automation. Delivery of items, all the way to the last mile can be done by implementing specific logistics guidelines, which include technological driven support such as live updates and efficient tracking of products, delivery through drones managed by a team sitting remotely at various locations and turning inventory systems digital.

As ‘contactless deliveries’ have become quite the trend and a rather important practice to ensure the safety of both employees and customers, enabling doorstep deliveries will ensure happy customer experience along with loyalty attached to the brand. This could be achieved via integrating with high-end logistics partners that ensure efficient management of orders and deliveries will prove beneficial.

2. Focus on Shifting to Omnichannel Commerce

Omnichannel retail commerce, although new to the Indian market, has now gained traction and continues to be adopted by major brands and businesses. The lockdown phase could not have made a better case for this method to be implemented as increased demand for essential goods and services can be dealt with, only when you have a presence not only at a single platform but everywhere possible.

Prior to the lockdown, the eCommerce volumes in India have seen a 51% increase in the overall consumption, making it the highest amongst other geographies around the globe in terms of online shopping. A smartphone in every hand, with hundreds of platforms to buy from, all contributed to this huge flow of demand and consumer growth was seen throughout this time making it more critical for businesses to practice omnichannel presence to ensure a consistent approach to manage orders, inventory and retail stores post the lockdown period.

The brands that implement omnichannel retail solutions have not only seen an increase in sales, but ensure that the hyperlocal delivery model enables enhanced customer experience leading to higher brand loyalty.

3. Diversifying Supply Sources and Right Stock Prioritization for Dispatches

Halt in services has caused piled up stocks in warehouses and manufacturing plants and these stocks will need first attention as soon as operations go back to normal once the lockdown is over. To restrict having dead stocks it’ll be viable to prioritize stocks as per their date of expiration which will help in a regular order processing cycle.

Apart from that, the negative of having only a single source for supplies has resulted in stock outs for the demanded services as well, and so focusing on finding multiple sources of supply will enable you to handle situations like these in a better way in the future.

Read: Unicommerce’s New Age D2C and Omnichannel Solutions empowered Chumbak to boost sales across 58+ Retail Stores with a 99.99%+ fulfillment rate

For you to be able to meet demands, keeping multiple sources to collect stocks from and moving them fast before they expire (especially for FMCG, Cosmetics and Pharma industry) can help you maintain uninterrupted services.

Getting back on track, consumer’s demand will increase gradually and once that happens you will need to be all ready and updated with all your stocks to avoid any further delays. Thus, it is imperative that the warehouse management solution that you implement should provide technologically advanced features such as Batching, FIFO and Cycle Count to ensure that your warehouse operations will run smoothly and restrict any more interruptions in your business.

4. Increase your Customer Services & Enhance Customer Experience

In these times, personalization is key. Each and every customer needs to feel that they are heard and can reach out to your business with all their issues. Customer care support has been a part of organizations for long but the change in dynamics caused by social distancing and people being locked up in their homes, the burden increases as customers would have a lot of time in their hands to register their concerns, and your lack of connection can prove fatal.

Brands need to incorporate strategies that will help them create a strong social presence and focus on developing products and services based on consumer requirements. The customer care systems will need to incorporate a deep and highly integrated backend system and this will be possible by introducing ERPs/CRMs that are deeply integrated with order and warehouse management systems (WMS) to ensure real-time communication with consumers and drive focus to what services are highly required from your end to the consumer. These practices will not only save your business but help it venture into better business opportunities.

In Conclusion

Getting back on track will surely take time, but with the right tools and solutions by your side and a well-planned strategy plan to lead entire supply chain operations will help you build up slowly but steadily.

Unicommerce has pledged to stand by all the MSMEs and brands to help them focus on building up while being the one-stop technology solution for all their business requirements.

Your business should be able to focus on building up operations post the lockdown is over and the solutions provided by Unicommerce including inventory management software, warehouse management and order management, which can be easily integrated with any ERP/CRM seamlessly (currently integrated with 100+ partners) to ensure that you have complete visibility of your business operations all from a single unified platform can prove to be highly dependable.

Shipping is both a challenge and an opportunity

Thu, 15 Feb 2018 05:19:25 +0000

Shipping is a crucial function of an e-commerce business. It is one of those common functions in the operations that is downright straightforward, but you cannot afford to make the pettiest mistake in carrying out the task. There is a lot at stake, your customer satisfaction, brand image, costs, and efficiency.

Irrespective of the nature of the business or its size, logistics is seemingly ordinary yet most critical function of them all to every e-commerce business owner.

Efficient shipping affects both you and your customers positively.

Read how Businesses are growing with Unicommerce – How Unicommerce helped Brand Studio carry out 2 Mn+ dispatches/month

1. Free shipping

Offering free shipping to customers is a great thing, and a powerful marketing tool to achieve customer happiness. But, how? Constant free shipping erodes your profits margin. On the flip side, your shipping charges may disappoint the customers and lose orders from them.

One way, to balance it out is fixing a certain base amount for domestic shipping. A clear shipping policy indicates the customers what to expect from your site when they are checking out to place an order. Their readiness to pay the amount removes the shipping fee barrier and eases the order placement process.

On the other hand, you can add the shipping charges (either wholly or partially) into the product prices and offer free shipping. This way the customers are pleased to have bought from you without shipping fees, but you would have recovered the shipping cost, either entirely or partially.

Whatever strategy you choose in the above scenarios, you must note that your profit margin should not suffer for the long run. You must also maintain competitive pricing of your products. It is a fine balance. But once achieved, it will ensure sustained business growth.

Unicommerce’s warehouse management system comes with the barcode supported system to identify how much profit margin you are marking on every product.

2. Product packaging

The logistics companies revise their prices year-on-year. The pricing mainly goes on the weight of the parcel. Shipping companies charge more to pick and ship the product package that is heavier. You can reduce the weight of the overall package by revisiting your product packaging arrangements.

Shipping discounts: If you can avail discounts on your order shipping, you save big and earn huge profit margin on every order. The negotiations must create a win-win situation for both the parties. The volume of packages and discounts go hand-in-hand.

3. Choosing the suitable shipping partner

There are many regional and international logistics companies operating in the country. The logistics industry is very competitive. Every shipping provider is characterised with a specific strength, for instance, some have broader reach geographically, some work on competitive price points, some handle delicate items exceptionally well, and some are quickest in order fulfilment.

Given the various plus points of the logistics operators, it takes a skilful analysis to shortlist the suitable logistics partners for order fulfilment.

Unicommerce’s WMS comes pre-integrated with almost two dozen leading shipping providers. The in-built feature enables our client’s order fulfilment process to be quick, easy and efficient. Since the process of shortlisting the appropriate shipping provider and assigning the order fulfilment is automated, our clients get ample time to introduce innovative business plans and grow exponentially.

The software assigns the shipping providers by pre-set guidelines and tracks order delivery in real-time. You and your customers get quick updates on the status of order delivery.

Shipping plays a crucial role in the e-commerce business. There are many hurdles as well as opportunities to benefit from the scenario. Having an efficient and automated tool to manage the shipping function is critical to achieving customer satisfaction and higher profits.

Get World-Class E-commerce Shipping Integrations with Unicommerce!

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Best Practices in Warehouse Management System

Thu, 25 May 2017 17:01:54 +0000

Warehouse Management plays a major factor in the performance abilities of supply chain operations. Therefore, you need to install a software that manages your daily operations; enhances productivity; and ensures customer satisfaction leading up to significant profits.

A good e-commerce warehouse management system (WMS) helps you in receiving the inventory, placing them on the designated shelf; improve the picking and shipping of orders and get real-time information on the inventory. Warehouse management softwares can be a standalone application or it can be integrated into your existing ERP system as well.

Utilising a strong Warehouse management software can immensely benefit your eCommerce and retail business. Some highly useful advantages include:

Lowering Labour Costs
Enhancing Inventory Accuracy
Improve flexibility in operation
Reducing errors while picking and shipping of goods
Upgrading customer services
Accessing real-time data

Wit these, WMS enables you to manage complete warehouse related activities including but not limited to orders, shipments, receipts and intra-warehouse movement of goods.

What are the best practices & processes for warehouse management?

So, if you are planning to opt for any management software for your new warehouse or planning to upgrade your existing system, ask these questions:

Below are 10 Key Questions one must ask before opting for any warehouse management software, to get Maximum benefits of their solutions.

1.Can it handle orders from multiple marketplaces?

You must be selling on 6-8 marketplaces all at the same time and so, it is important for any WMS solution to provide the sellers with the ability to seamlessly process orders of all marketplaces so that the inventory can be managed accordingly.

2. Does the solution provide you inventory accuracy?

Inventory management is a big problem for sellers, particularly when you have to manage 100+ dispatches every day. Managing the inventory manually, tracking it timely and updating the stock after each day’s sales is a hectic task which when not done with complete accuracy leads to unmanaged and errorful operations.

Any errors in inventory not only results in loss of working capital but also impacts sales volume as inventory listed on marketplaces is the key factor in determining sales for all online sellers. Thus, an automated system above a manual one to manage inventory accurately can go a long way in managing complex warehouse operations.

Read: How Dhani Services Ltd., a leading Consumer Services, has streamlined operations across 166 facilities while ensuring a 99.99%+ fulfillment rate

3. Will you be able to manage all the sections of your warehouse?

Most sellers end up doing an ad hoc management of their warehouse, causing inventory errors, stock-outs, etc. which lead up to a lot of mismanagement. It is imperative that the WMS you choose allows you to define zones, bins, locations, etc. so that your warehouse can be neatly organized.

Your WMS solution should allow you to define zones based on product categories, product velocity (i.e. how fast or slow a particular product is selling) or any other such criteria which are important to your business.

Most leading WMS solutions still do not have a very comprehensive implementation of this requirement, but some new-age solutions like Unicommerce provide the flexibility to manage the warehouse in a very systematic manner with cycle count enabled and RFID barcode scanning to handle returns as well as maintain the serial numbers.

4. Is it compatible with various third-party hardware devices?

With increasing volumes by the minute, it becomes impossible to operate a warehouse manually. Seeing the need, sellers have begun to invest in deploying Bluetooth-based handheld devices to automate key warehouse processes.

These handheld devices are not very expensive and can be procured anywhere in the range of Rs. 5-10k, adding a lot of value in terms of improving productivity, reducing errors and are able to recover the cost of investment in less than 6 months if used with a proper system.

5. Does it help to optimize the picking process?

Using manual or traditional systems typically leads to a lot of inefficiencies in the picking process. Eventually, the picking staff ends up wasting time trying to locate the right product.

If they end up picking the wrong product, it only adds to the delay as they are then required to put the product back and fetch the right one for dispatch. All of this leads up to monetary losses.

And so, it is important that the WMS solution one uses has inbuilt features like picklists, FIFO based picking etc. to ensure that picking of goods happen in an efficient manner.

Figure 1: Sample Picklist format In Unicommerce

6. How easily can you manage returns in the WMS?

For any online seller, returns are a big pain area, as it adds directly to the cost, and every seller continues to grapple with this issue. If returns are managed properly, the profitability of any seller can easily improve by 10-15%, thus it is important that the solution deployed by you is able to handle such a critical process seamlessly.

It is important that your WMS solution should be able to scan each item and identify the order against which the return is received. The solution should also be able to reconcile the returns for which the item itself is not received.

All these features are already supported in Unicommerce, making it a preferred tool for handling returns seamlessly without any hassles.

7. Does it have an access control feature?

With data theft and stock pilferage a day to day reality for most sellers, it is important that the solution you choose provides the ability to configure secure access to the system.

The solution should provide a definition of roles to the users and grant access to the users based on the roles assigned to them. The roles should also be flexible enough to map all the warehouse processes. For example, Unicommerce provides the flexibility to define up to 9 roles in its solution.

Different Roles for Different Users

8. Does it provide quality checks?

Due to the regular wear and tear in the warehouse, some stock may not always be in a sellable condition. For example, a stock may be damaged while lying in the warehouse, and the operator may discover the “bad” stock only at the time of the dispatch.

To avoid situations like this, it becomes important that the WMS you choose allows you the flexibility of doing quality testing at every key checkpoint (inbound, outbound, picking etc.).

9. Does it help in tracking shipments across multiple delivery partners?

Ecommerce sellers have to deal with various shipping providers (marketplace provided shipping, self-shipping etc.) and it’s quite troublesome to deal with multiple shipping partners.

Thus, it is important that the WMS you choose helps you track shipments across various delivery partners. In addition, the system should allow you the adaptability of defining the priority of shipping providers or build custom rules. For example, fragile items should go through courier X only, or high-value items should go through courier Y only. All this is currently supported in Unicommerce.

10. Does it provide comprehensive analytics to assess your operations?

Analytics is a powerful tool and the insights that you can draw from your WMS solution can be useful in making key business decisions related to growth, productivity, unit economics, etc. It is important that the WMS solution not only provides comprehensive data but also presents the data in an easily comprehensible manner.

Unicommerce currently supports 100+ marketplaces, carts, logistics providers, ERP & POS systems and is the first choice of over 10,000 brands, sellers and retailers to be their Warehouse Management Solutions provider.

Unicommerce allows multiple technologically advanced warehouse management solutions such as handheld, FIFO, batching, cycle count, etc., and continues to evolve its offering in this regard.

Effective warehouse management translates to having the right amount of the right product at the right location delivered just in time to satisfy customer needs at minimum cost and Unicommerce is capable of imparting that for your business.

So what are you waiting for? Register today with Unicommerce, the leading supply chain operations management to ease your daily eCommerce as well as a retail business!

Request a Demo Now!

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