Cloud-Based Freight Procurement Solution Helps 3PL Optimize RFP Events
A large third-party logistics provider turned to SMC³’s freight procurement tool, Bid$ense®, to simplify and streamline the procurement event process. The solution saved the 3PL time and money.
The Challenge
With the rise in available data, the need to understand, utilize, and share it becomes increasingly important.
A large third-party logistics provider for shippers and carriers needed a procurement tool to help manage large sets of data, create bid events, optimize workflows, and enable responsive communications. With many bid procurement tools on the market, this 3PL began their search for the one that could help them achieve their goals at scale.
To help with the selection process, the company started by defining what kind of information and output they would like to get out of their bid tool. They narrowed their search to a few crucial business outcomes their chosen bid tool would have to provide:
- The ability to identify bidding challenges and their impact on the business
- Targeted negotiations
- Faster feedback to clients and carriers
- Shorter response times
- Any easy way to follow up on accepted RFPs and save time
The Solution
The 3PL selected SMC³’s freight procurement tool Bid$ense®, a cloud-based solution for over-the-road freight transportation sourcing and pricing negotiation. In one RFP example, they used Bid$ense to run a smarter bid procurement event at a scope of 10,000 shipments from 51 different origins and across 3,300 unique lanes.
The company sent 41 unique bid invitations to carriers through Bid$ense—all as one push email from the tool, as opposed to 41 emails to be individually sent, corralled, and followed up on.
Bid$ense became a valuable tool for this 3PL by simplifying and streamlining the procurement event process. They also saw benefit in working with SMC³ and their team of transportation experts to optimize RFP events—saving them time and money.
The results immediately distinguished Bid$ense as the bid solution of choice, providing value across key areas:
- Instant visibility into bid responses (33 out of 41 carriers accepted the RFP; 31 responded)
- Showed the impact of different respondent criteria, down to the lane level
- Enabled timely follow-up with carriers that accepted the RFP, including prompts from Bid$ense about when to follow up with which carriers
- Allowed for inclusion or exclusion of specific carriers
To learn more:
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www.smc3.com