Transportation Orchestration

Recent world events highlight the importance of having control over logistics and the ability to be nimble and flexible. In modern organizations, transportation and logistics managers view data and analytics as a critical factor in having successful relationships with the numerous participants in their transportation networks. They also understand that technology, of course, is a critical enabler of enhanced logistics management capabilities. The good news is that more and richer sources of available data, together with advances in transportation-related systems and technologies, have the potential to solve even the most complex modern-day business problems. 

We have dug into various publications on Transportation Orchestration, and particularly those by Oracle which has been substantively leading efforts in this area, and present here several highlights for those considering orchestrated transportation management across insourced, outsourced, or hybrid strategies:

Business Challenges

• Inability to validate the true cost and benefits of outsourcing transportation operations compared with managing them in-house
• Lack of transportation simulation methods to model options for resiliency and growth
• Struggle to model and measure the transportation options required to meet sustainability, social, and governance agendas
• Challenges when measuring the performance of logistics providers
• Inaccurate budgeting of transportation operations when faced with challenges such as supply-and-demand shifts, M&A activity, and corporate consolidation

How it Works & Key Features

Oracle’s Transportation Orchestration solution integrates shipment data in a single platform, providing the ability to rapidly evaluate potential changes to your logistics operations and measure their impact in a real and meaningful way, without the need to deploy a full transportation management system (TMS). It works by importing and utilizing all your existing operational data into a single place called the Transportation Data Lake, enabling you to see your logistics operation more clearly and to simulate and implement improvements to your strategy.

• Measure impact of potential changes to logistics operations
• Flexible data input options
• Perform “what-if” scenario analysis and evaluate scenarios side-by-side 
• Understand logistics data using a single platform 
• Validate the costs of outsourcing transportation operations

Key Benefits

• Build the foundation supporting your transportation strategies
• Gain control of your logistics with corporate transportation analytics
• Improve cost control
• Reduce your carbon footprint
• Ensure world-class customer experience
• Get a faster time to value
• Kick-start a corporate TMS

The world of transportation logistics is rapidly changing and orchestrating your logistics operation will help companies cope with the challenges of a new normal. Leveraging the benefits of optimization and resilience minimizes the company’s environmental impact and carbon footprint. Orchestration enables companies to be more resilient and agile, facilitating a more holistic view of transportation data and the ability to both accurately measure current performance as well as evaluate potential operational changes.