How to prepare for growth successfully in the Logistics Industry? That is an important question to ask:
The main objective of any business is to grow, generate profit and be successful. Nevertheless, very few companies are preparing their business to BE successful and to handle that growth. Lack of preparation can easily become one of the main factors of long-term failure.
Challenges like missing deadlines, missed quotes, late billing or re-billing due to errors, information buried in email inboxes (among others), are faced by companies who are growing at an average rate. Challenges that, if not dealt with can generate low cash flow, employee burn-out, and loss of both current and future clients. However, there are some simple, yet effective steps you can take to prepare your business for successful growth:
How to prepare for growth:
- Build a strategic plan
- Build your team
- Optimize through technology
- Get your team to buy-in through involvement & training
- Accountability for success
You can also watch our webinar on-demand: Grow Your 3PL Business in 4 Steps
Building a strategic plan
There is no one-size-fits-all solution, but you can do things to be prepared. From our experience coaching and working with hundreds of logistics companies and considering our customers’ experiences, we know how important a plan is to achieving objectives, especially in the logistics industry where companies are continuously developing their customer service, brokering freight, and closing deals. Things such as analyzing your quoting processes, implementing systems that can handle a large volume of information for invoicing, and making sure you are providing superior customer service are all part of the “must-do” list for businesses in the Logistic Industry…but where do you start?
The basis of a good plan is a good goal. It sounds simple enough but still, this is where most companies struggle. One of the simplest ways to create a good goal is to use the S.M.A.R.T. methodology. It is a fairly well-known goal creation methodology, so we won’t be going too deep into it, but it stands for: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-bound.
When planning, it is important to understand where your company currently is, and what issues you may encounter when growing. Some of the most common questions we receive from our clients that deal with the growing pains that companies experience in the logistics industry are:
- How can we quote better?
- How can we win more business?
- How can we be more precise in invoicing?
- How can we minimize the amount of time it takes to gather information?
- How can we free up our team up to focus more on customer service?
This is the end of part 1. We will be posting the second part soon!
More content for you!
On-Demand Webinar: How to Be Prepared to Grow Successfully
How to Be Prepared to Grow Successfully
Our goal at Hubtek is to help our clients with solutions to these questions and pains through the services that we provide. Joel McGinley, our Managing Director, asked Stephanie Ospina, the Strategic Partnership Manager at GLT Logistics, “What do you think has empowered GLT Logistics to succeed?”, as they have seen significant growth over the past five years. Her response was, “I believe in having the right people with you. Having good, talented people with us is one of the major reasons for our success today. And technology has to be a game-changing experience for us because we have automated our processes. That way, we can provide a better customer experience.”
In short, the combination of Talent and technology was their solution, and Hubtek helped them to find the right people, adopt the right technology, and decide when to invest.
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