The digitalisation of transport procurement: Ensure enough supply and achieve the most competitive contracted rates

Linebooker acts as a procurement partner for several industry leading businesses in SA and has successfully completed tenders for leading FMCG, mining, beverage, mega farmers and chemical businesses delivering increased truck supply and above 10% savings on transport costs.

Procurement teams can gain access to 650 plus fully vetted and pre-approved transport companies and 16500 plus trucks in record time. Linebooker has vetted these transport companies and has data available on their service levels, preferred routes, capacity, and availability. This has solved the problem of acquiring high-quality carriers at affordable rates. The Linebooker tender platform allows you to tap into our vast network of SA’s top pre-approved transport companies. Ensure enough supply and achieve the most competitive contracted rates with the best transport operators on selected routes.

Logistics and Procurement Departments save considerable time and frustration by leveraging Linebooker technology and the large network of trucks (650+ companies, 16500+ trucks), to gain consistent supply during season and reduced lane rates (+-10%). Post tender, the Platform handles all load allocations to selected transporters and gives live updates on performance at many levels:

• Loads allocated vs taken per transporter
• ETA and arrival time adherence
• TAT’s (in transit times)
• Proof of delivery submission performance
• Number of loads per route and average Lane rates allocated etc.

Traditionally, transport procurement has been palmed off to someone in the warehouse with little oversight or control. This is changing as transport cost and service is moving into the boardroom and becoming a focal point for customers. With a full technology solution like Linebooker, all stakeholders win, logistics managers to CFOs and CEOs.

Procurement must communicate and share its successes beyond price, leveraging its position between suppliers and the business to manage relationships effectively and deliver value beyond savings. Capacity is ‘king’ and then cost. Unless products, components or raw materials reach their destinations, goods cannot be marketed and converted to cash. Having access to a large network of transport suppliers and trucks to select from is more important than ever before.

The main issue with traditional tender processes lies in limited and poor supplier selection, no price comparison, possibility of fraud and corruption, and no end-to-end supply chain visibility. Taking procurement onto platform technology, procurement teams can run a tender process to 650 plus fully vetted and pre-approved transport companies in record time.

“We extended and built the tender and procurement process on the Linebooker platform to give customers the ability to interact with lots of transport companies on a transparent basis and request tenders, ensuring that through every tender process the best of breed is considered.” explains Rademan.

Keeping supply chains moving and digitalising them to meet the emerging challenges of transport under-capacity and sustained demand is testing the most seasoned buying teams. Solving problems like:

• Year on year transport cost increases
• Not having consistent supply during seasonal periods
• How to onboard 650+ transport companies without knowing which you will use and when
• Reaching a limited number of transport service providers
• Inability to manage and pay a large number of transport service providers
• Selecting a small pool of transport service providers creates supply constraints
• Ability to flex supply chain capacity within days to service customer demand

Linebooker is a home-grown example of this new service model. Rather than run a transport company or warehouse, Linebooker has created a software platform that provides users with access to a broader market of transport providers, along with transparency in pricing and full digitalisation of all transport operations. Linebooker manages full operations, liability and payments for all customers post the tender selection by customers.

Linebooker – SA’s home grown ‘Uber of trucking’ has in four years gained scale and credibility to rival the large old school logistics and transport service providers in Africa. The business model has been quickly adopted by some of the most credible brands and business in SA, and this explains why Linebooker has been delivering over 10% a month compounded growth that’s expected to continue.

Going forward experts predict that the industry should expect to see Linebooker type solutions playing an increasingly important role, as the industry has been hit hard by capacity issues, rising fuel costs and ever-shrinking delivery windows.