Transportation Software Solutions for Last Mile Delivery

Oracle. SAP. Manhattan. If you’re looking for transportation software, there are players in the space with serious pedigrees that you can choose from. But “transportation” is such a broad term—and the solutions in this area cover so many different use cases—that it can be tough to look beyond the name brands to figure out what’s actually going to solve the challenges that you’re dealing with as an organization. 

A manufacturer trying to optimize modes for the first and middle mile is going to need a very different kind of transportation software solution compared to someone who manages their own final mile deliveries as well. By the same token, businesses in different industries are going to have different needs as well—and it can be tough to wade through the information that’s out there to figure out which software options will support, say, a food distributor working to streamline their logistics processes. 

So what’s the best approach for logistics businesses seeking to upgrade their software stacks?

Index:

• What Kinds of Transport Software Solutions Are There?
• How Do Transportation Software Solutions Handle the Last Mile?
• Finding the Right Technology for Your Transportation and Delivery Needs

What Kinds of Transport Software Solutions Are There?

To get a handle on the types of software solutions that can help your business overcome challenges and streamline operations, let’s quickly discuss the different types of transport software solutions that are out there:

• Transportation Management System (TMS): This is probably the thing that most people have in mind when they think about transportation software. According to Gartner, this category covers “software that supports multimodal planning and execution of the physical transport of goods across the supply chain.” Generating quotes, invoicing clients, rating drivers, securing transportation, carrier management, and tracking shipments are things you might expect to get out of your TMS.
• Logistics Management: These systems are a little more generalized, offering supply chain optimizations with an emphasis on visibility. The emphasis for solutions like these is usually on unifying different elements of the supply chain—e.g. warehouse management and transportation—within a single platform. These might include solutions like PackageX and EliteExtra, though many systems labeled as TMSs also fall into this category. 
• Last Mile Logistics: These solutions focus specifically on the final mile of the logistics journey. Why does this leg of the supply chain require its own dedicated software solution? Because it’s the most complex part of the transportation process by far. These solutions will often focus on last mile routing and customer experience, but can include capabilities around visibility and tracking as well. Essentially, they’re designed to optimize the process of getting the right goods to the right place at the right time across the last mile. 

Each of these types of solutions are closely related, and many will offer overlapping features with one another, but they fundamentally solve different challenges for delivery businesses:

• TMS software for trucking companies helps address challenges around securing optimal rates, managing supply chain capacity, and dealing with the financial elements of the transportation process. They’re great for businesses with complex supply chains that could be administered in a more cost effective way. 
• Logistics management solutions help address challenges around supply chain visibility. For businesses that can’t answer questions about the status and location of their shipments, they can be a huge help. 
• Last mile delivery solutions help businesses provide the best possible service to the end customer in the most cost-effective way. They’re ideal for businesses that are trying to improve their on-time delivery rates or boost their customer success metrics. 

How Do Transportation Software Solutions Handle the Last Mile?

Like we said above, solutions across different categories will have overlapping functionality—while many solutions within the same category will offer wildly different feature sets. 

When it comes to the last mile, these differences can be amplified. Many of the TMS options on the market will offer route optimization for last mile deliveries—but is that enough to actually tackle something as complex as the final mile of the supply chain? 

By the same token, logistics management solutions can provide visibility across the entire supply chain—including the last mile. Between these two solutions, can businesses get the planning and tracking they need to reduce last mile delivery costs?

For most use cases, the answer is “not really.” Yes, visibility and routing are crucial pieces of the puzzle, but it takes a lot of surrounding functionality to turn these features into meaningful time and cost savings. 

Again, it’s all about the end customer, so routing and tracking need to be integrated with customer experience tools in order to create a wraparound experience. Your routing engine might produce spot-on ETAs, and your visibility platform may enable total visibility, but if you can’t translate those things into improved customer experience you’re inevitably missing out. 

That’s where the right last mile logistics solution can be particularly impactful. Ideally, your last mile delivery software would integrate with your other logistics technology to empower visibility and tracking from end to end, all while enabling you to keep the end customer in the loop and ensure on-time deliveries. 

The last mile is where all of your other supply chain investments need to pay off. Making that happen requires a delicate balancing act of route optimization, driver management, customer communication, delivery tracking, and proof of delivery capture—the easiest way to make sure those processes all coalesce is to house them within a single last mile delivery management solution. 

Finding the Right Technology for Your Transportation and Delivery Needs

When you’re looking for the right truck transport management system—specifically one that can actually handle last mile deliveries—there are a handful of things it’s helpful to seek out:

• A proven track record: The best transportation software companies are those who have proven themselves capable of saving their clients money and helping them to improve their transportation operations. Look for someone who can point to many years of satisfied customers achieving demonstrable results. 
• SaaS functionality: The era of on-prem deployments is over for most businesses. The advantages of having control over your own technology infrastructure are far outweighed by the advantages of automated security updates, continual improvements to features, and reduced risk of compatibility issues down the road. 
• AI and machine learning: There’s no point denying the fact that many AI tools are little more than gimmicks—but don’t let that give you the wrong idea. AI has the power to enable smarter, faster, and more efficient route optimization (to say nothing of other processes), and many businesses are already leveraging it to help improve performance. 
• Customer experience tools across the entire lifecycle: Sure, you could leverage a TMS for route optimization and a separate solution for customer communications—but you’d better be extremely confident in the data integration between them. Getting the last mile right means communicating with customers before, during, and after delivery. It also means ensuring the customers can communicate with your team without picking up the phone—and that your team can send alerts and notifications whenever an unexpected situation arises. Drivers are also intimately involved in this process, so ensuring that they can send updates with the push of a button is paramount.

There are a lot of transportation management software companies out there, and it can feel daunting to try and choose the best one for your unique business case. But if the last mile is a potential area of improvement for your business, start by considering solutions that are explicitly designed with last mile logistics optimization in mind.