JBF Freight Transportation Bulletin #29

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Welcome to the Summer (June/July) 2022 issue of JBF Freight Transportation Industry Bulletin, a monthly newsletter curated by the JBF Consulting team, with a focus on supply chain, transportation, logistics and of course freight.

In the Summer 2022 Issue

• How do you select enterprise software?
• Supreme Court Denies Petition Against AB5
• 5 Key Aspects of BY’s New Luminate TMS Platform Reviewed
• 3 Traps to Avoid in Supply Chain Technology Transformation
• Cleveland JBFers gather
• Meet Tony Wayda
• Michael Wolf on Why Freight Tech Fails and What To Do About It?
• Highlights from BY ICON 2022
• MEME of the month

• Click here to read the full edition of JBF Summer 2022 Bulletin

 

 

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A Message From Brad Forester, CEO

Have you ever selected an enterprise software application primarily based on an industry analyst's perception of market ranking?

You are not alone!

Many of our clients and organizations in general are heavy consumers of independent analyst insights from the likes of Gartner, Forrester, and others.

The analyst companies do spend a great deal of time, effort, and serious brainpower assembling a framework for how they will judge the software vendor community.

We frequently agree with their overall positioning, ranking, and assessment of the vendors as well.

So what's the problem?

The biggest issue is that so many enterprises investing in a new transportation management system will simply short-list and select vendors based on the analysts' ranking, instead of first understanding what facets of their own business operations make them unique as shippers.

Take retail for example - there are significant operational and logistical differences in how an apparel retailer uses a transportation system versus big box, furniture, home improvement, grocery, or e-commerce retailer

Even within an individual sector of retail like grocery, operations can differ widely based on geography served, product mix (e.g. produce, frozen, etc.) and growth strategy (i.e. acquisition versus organic growth).

As consumers, we can see first hand that not every grocery chain is the same.

So why should our enterprise software decisions be based primarily on an aggregated market perception of vendor strategy and capabilities?

They should not!

The correct way to select a vendor comes from the due diligence of understanding how your business is unique, where the complications in your operations are, and capturing the current - and future - requirements that will power and automate your logistics operations in the future.

Without understanding this, you're simply copying someone else's business model.

In the world of software implementation, this typically leads to a great deal of implementation effort, mismatched features to requirements, and unhappy clients that fail to deliver ROI for these large projects.

Design a blueprint, define your own requirements, and create your own 'Declaration of Independence' if you want your implementation to be successful.

-Brad Forester, CEO

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