JDA Software Recommends Three Critical Transportation Strategies for Retailers in 2011

Printer-friendly versionPDF version

New York — January 11, 2011 -- NRF 100th Annual Convention & Expo -- Every season retailers launch aggressive holiday promotions to help lure shoppers, and in 2010 the offer of free shipping was a crucial one. With retailers advertising free shipping with no minimum purchase along with complimentary ship-to-store and home shipping deals, consumers turned to laptops and mobile devices for their gift buying, driving online sales to record double-digit growth. Yet the increase in parcel activity due to direct consumer fulfillment has resulted in new transportation challenges — and margin pressures — for multi-channel retailers already dealing with dynamic supply chain and environmental constraints.

“Retailers recognize that staying competitive means appealing to consumers’ evolving preferences, and industry analysts are saying that the offer of free shipping helped to make or break some retailers’ holiday seasons,” said Fabrizio Brasca, vice president, global logistics,JDA Software Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: JDAS). “To successfully leverage transportation as a competitive differentiator at Christmas or any time of the year, retailers must continuously plan and tune their logistics operations to ensure their transportation strategies are as efficient as possible. This means investing in highly flexible systems and a fulfillment network that can accommodate variability across modes for increased visibility and predictability.” 

From more accurately forecasting projected seasonal volumes to better negotiating rates, service deals and capacities, retailers need a closed-loop approach that seamlessly ties their procurement processes into execution. JDA recommends three transportation strategies to help drive efficiency and service levels all year-round:

1. Multi-channel retailing establishes the need forcross-modal optimization.  Not too long ago a retailer’s mode of transportation was all about loading trucks and shipping into distribution centers and stores. The recent increase in parcel activity due to direct consumer fulfillment is changing the modal mix for retailers and resulting in a whole new set of transportation challenges. With the influx of online ordering and mixes of fulfillment strategies, retailers must be prepared to accommodate these broadened requirements. Adopting an integrated, holistic approach to transportation processes and systems will help better position retailers to consider the added volume as part of their standard supply chain policies. As a result, they will have the ability to allocate their modal strategy more evenly across the network to keep service levels high and meet consumer demand for on-time shipments.
2. Greater control of inbound processes both domestically and internationally. There is a continuing trend among retailers to take ownership of inbound transportation processes. By gaining greater control of both the domestic and international movement of goods into their own network, retailers can take advantage of scale to save money and better maintain optimum stocking levels. The handling of international inbound processes, in particular, presents added complexities such as weakened visibility and longer lead times. Transportation management systems (TMS) cannot address these issues alone. Retailers need to link their TMS tovendor collaboration portals that provide improved visibility on a multi-modal set of movements and increased collaboration with vendors on what’s available to ship. With this knowledge retailers can more effectively plan transport and have greater flexibility to dynamically re-route or re-plan in response to any changes in demand or allocation.
3. Focus on sustainability creates a need for increased utilization: Another growing requirement for retailers is adopting a transportation sustainability strategy in order to minimize their environmental impact. Reducing the overall need for transportation means retailers must adopt a holistic approach across multiple modes to fully leverage their network assets and drive network utilization. Emerging technologies such as containerization, for example, enable retail shippers to optimize three-dimensional spaces. Rather than focusing on filling a truck from a routing perspective, retailers are using containerization capabilities to plan from a pure volume perspective. By consolidating loads and more intelligently routing their assets, retailers will use fewer containers and trucks to help increase utilization and contribute to the company’s overall environmental goals.

A video featuring Fabrizio Brasca discussing these three critical transportation strategies for retailers can be seen at:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVM71dQ17Rg

Learn More About JDA’s Winning Transportation Strategies
To learn more about how JDA can help retailers make transportation a competitive differentiator, please visit JDA at booth #415 at the National Retail Federation 100th Annual Convention & Expo, January 9-12, 2011 at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York. Information is also available at  www.jda.com.

About JDA Software Group
JDA® Software Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: JDAS), The Supply Chain Company®, is the leading provider of innovative supply chain management, merchandising and pricing excellence solutions worldwide. JDA empowers more than 6,000 companies of all sizes to make optimal decisions that improve profitability and achieve real results in the discrete and process manufacturing, wholesale distribution, transportation, retail and services industries. With an integrated solutions offering that spans the entire supply chain from materials to the consumer, JDA leverages the powerful heritage and knowledge capital of acquired market leaders including i2 Technologies®, Manugistics®, E3®, Intactix® and Arthur®. JDA’s multiple service options, delivered via the JDA® Private Cloud, provide customers with flexible configurations, rapid time-to-value, lower total cost of ownership and 24/7 functional and technical support and expertise.  To learn more, visit
www.jda.com or e-mail info@jda.com.

Detailed Contact Info »

  JDA Software Group, Inc.
  14400 N. 87th Street
  Scottsdale, AZ 85260-3649
  Phone:480.308.3000
  Fax:480.308.3001

  Phone:  888.441.1532
  Phone:  301.255.516

  Phone:800.785.5063

US, Canada and Latin America:
Sales/Marketing:
     480.308.3555
     800.479.7382
Government Purchasing:
     JGov@jda.com

  UK & Northern Europe:
     +44.(0)1344.35.45.00
  France & Southern Europe:
     +33.(0)1.56.79.27.00

  Singapore: +65.6305.4350
  Japan: +81.3.6418.1100
  Australia: +61.2.8912.7900
  China: +86.21.6289.7979
  India: +91.22.6770.2795
News Source : JDA Software Recommends Three Critical Transportation Strategies for Retailers in 2011