Poorly organised documentation can seriously impede the smooth movement of goods and significantly increase shipping risks, costs and penalties. That is why it is crucial that all parties ensure their documentation is well managed.

Typically, the large shippers have to deal with hundreds of documents needed to clear customs and take delivery of goods – from bill of lading, commercial invoice and certificate of origin, to cargo insurance certificate, export licence and packing list. They also need to deal with a wide range of contacts, from trading partners and shipping & logistics companies, to various national and international agencies & authorities. What is more, these documents are often subject to complex and sometimes arcane rules, regulations and procedures that need to be followed closely. Lost, incorrect or tardy documentation critically delays shipments and incur penalties and other direct costs. Or indirect financial impact associated with disgruntled clients and a damaged brand image and reputation if your shipments do not reach your stores on time.

Going digital
Dealing with all this documentation can be challenging and overwhelming. What is obviously needed is a way to ensure all the required documents are correct and easily accessible, and can be dispatched at a moment’s notice. Any efficient and effective solution will certainly involve the use of information and communication technology, where documents (and other shipping-related information) are digitised and subsequently processed and distributed electronically, automatically and in a split second. In this way documents can be validated and distributed speedily and securely, and (seamlessly) processed by computer systems at the receiving end. The reduction or elimination of manual handling and paper documents will not only lower costs, but also limit the risks of delays and resulting penalties.

One-stop shopping
Damco, an international freight forwarder, consolidator and logistics specialist, offers such a solution though the myDamco portal. This web-based toolbox provides customers with integrated supply-chain management services, offering them a complete overview of their supply chain activities, as well as access to the data they need to be able to place bookings, generate and manage documentation and extract reports. The document management function in myDamco addresses the complexity of global sourcing in multiple countries and of engaging with counterparts globally. It allows shipping documents, for instance, to be stored and shared electronically with suppliers, customers and brokers worldwide. Documents are easy to upload and access, thanks to the single interface that allows users to move seamlessly between receipt, display, validation and print functions, before finally forwarding the documents in an electronic pouch for customs clearance. In addition, users can deploy the track & trace tool to find, view, sort, save and extract shipping documents for any of their shipments.

The people behind the service
But myDamco is more than that. Our services and customizations are a direct result of us closely working with leading global companies over the past decades, which is why we can contractually commit to our customer’s KPIs. Document information can be exchanged directly between our own systems and the users’ in-house systems, using electronic data interchange (EDI), for example. This will eliminate, or at least reduce, the risk of documents getting lost, arriving late or being incorrect, and with the resulting benefits. For some of our customers we even (manually or automatically) collect, validate, prepare and process all these documents, ensuring they are received, checked and forwarded to the correct parties and destinations – on time and in the proper sequence.

Contact
Contact us for more information about our one-stop logistics portal. Or to view a short, live presentation of the myDamco features and benefits, please click here.

The post Why it pays to handle your shipping documents efficiently and diligently appeared first on Damco Blog - Logistics News, Stories and Opinion.

Historically, one of the main problems of decision making — professionally as well as in people’s private lives — was the lack of reliable data. In recent years the situation has turned into its opposite: there is so much data available that it has become hard to see the wood for the trees. Fortunately, technology now allows us to combine high quality data with industry knowledge and experience from many sources, and to process and present this in usable and actionable form: this is Customer Dashboards.

The end of the Excel era?
Until a few years ago, the data required to support business decisions could be managed by spreadsheet software — which itself represented a major step forwards compared to pen and paper calculations. But modern information technology has both increased the volume of available data exponentially and shortened the decision making timeframe.

A private investor with a diversified portfolio used to receive a weekly statement from his bank or broker through the mail. Armed with this he would place buy or sell orders by phone or fax with his broker to execute the following day: always trading at a disadvantage using old information. Now, the same investor has access to real time information through a website or mobile app, presented to him in easily understood form.

The power of this approach resides not only in the visualisation technology, but also in the intelligence embedded in the representation. The customer doesn’t need to be a financial wizard to decipher the meaning of the numbers, because the bank’s financial experts have created visualisations that are the most useful for his situation.

Customer Dashboards for the logistics industry
Our customers have seen the volume and accuracy of data available to them increase significantly over the past few years. Using this detailed and real time information on cargoes, modern supply chain management systems have developed new milestones and KPI’s. But so much data, so many KPIs, however necessary when analysing the root causes of a problem, isn’t necessarily helpful in day to day operational decision-making.

The logistics expertise we have gained over two decades working with customers across industrial and geographic sectors, helped us to transform the increasing mass of data into real, actionable insight and knowledge, presented typically through a dashboard to give live users exactly what they need to make effective decisions quickly.

Looking forward: Customer Dashboards 2016
The dynamics of business are continually changing: last year’s analytics and responses may no longer be relevant. Our customers are investing in resources and infrastructure to make their supply chains more resilient and more cost-effective, and logistics providers such as Damco must track or even lead these evolutions. Our current dashboards support functionalities that were unthinkable even two or three years ago and Damco continues to incorporate the latest possibilities with a major upgrade, to be launched later this year. More details will be published on future blogs. If you want to explore the potential of customer dashboards for your particular situation, you may get in touch with me at praful.waghela@damco.com

The post Navigating the Ocean of Logistics Data appeared first on Damco Blog - Logistics News, Stories and Opinion.