The year is 2020. Our mobile phones do everything from vacuuming and mopping our homes to automatically paying bills, playing the music we like, and switching off our lights if we doze off. With our busy schedules, we sometimes forget to realize the massive impact technology has made in our daily life. This reliance on the reliability of modern technology lies in our belief in innovation.

The logistics and transportation industry has its roots in innovation. From the invention of the wheel to the cart, cars, trucks, and now intelligent, self-navigating trucks, the logistics, and transportation industry has always been at the forefront of technology. Benefitting from innovations and helping people move goods faster from suppliers to customers. 

Smart technology, smarter results

Smart navigational technology such as GPS and the marriage of AI and IoT in the form of logistics mobile apps have become the new building blocks of the logistics industry. These technologies help companies and end-users to track vehicles, get real-time information, drive innovation, and automation to new levels. 

The advent of mobile technology has made the most profound impact on logistics. With on-board, mobile navigation systems, smart inventory control, real-time tracking, and on-demand bookings. Every benefit of innovations in mobile apps for transportation today seems to have been custom-designed for the logistics industry.

How does mobile technology benefit the logistics world?

Mobile Technology helps logistics services get better and smarter in many ways. These include:

• Smart Navigation

As vehicles get smarter navigation systems, they choose better routes for their drivers, reducing maintenance costs and downtime. 

• Pit-stop Standardization

Smart, IoT and AI-driven logistics systems help drivers to find pit stops before important stop points such as toll plazas, breakfast, lunch and dinner breaks, they end up making the drivers stop at pre-set, standardized breakpoints. This helps drivers stop at secure locations for the day and gives them the confidence of eating quality food. Many solutions also let drivers eat and rest without any charge to them, ensuring peace of mind and reducing incidents of theft.

• Reduced maintenance costs

As trucks now follow pre-determined, better routes, they reduce tyre and engine wear. Coupled with automated service calls, trucks that need service are not given routes that may need one midway. This helps in keeping the environment clean and reducing incidents of downtime, delayed packages and high maintenance costs, directly increasing revenues.

• Seamless communication

Mobile telephony and instant messaging have ensured constant communication between drivers, ground personnel and service providers. This reduces incidents of communication gaps and delays in updates.

• Reduced reliance on paper

Paperless transactions are good for the environment and better for logistics companies. As they reduce their reliance on paper, they can now quickly scan items using their mobile phones or hand-held readers, speeding up delivery and routing processes. Coupled with the power of IoT, this also eliminates possibilities of human error in the terms of skipped manual scans and enhances visibility for stakeholders.

• Easier processing of bookings and payments

Booking of packages for pickup and delivery and payment for these can now be done on transport and logistics mobile apps, reducing reliance on paper money, and eliminating the need for transactions at the user end, speeding up pickups and deliveries.

• Transparency

The biggest problem faced by logistics fleet owners, drivers and end-users are of transparency. Mobile technology, IoT and AI add increased visibility and provide comprehensive data with audit trails to ensure that the problem of transparency is mitigated for everyone involved.

• Warehouse management

As many logistics companies also manage warehouses, using mobile technology can help the sorting and dispatch of goods by reducing manual errors. This can reduce incidents of lost parcels and put a check on inventory quality, mitigating incidents of pilferage.

• Finance and control

As transactions move online, the reliance on paper trails and incidents of human error reduces manifold. This helps in processing payments, refunds, and incidents of tax fraud. 

Managing your backend operations and front-end customer-facing operations become easier, streamlined, and error-free.

• Simplified growth for SMEs

As smaller, innovative transporters enter this trade, they have the option to tie-up with more than one provider, helping them ensure full-truck loads at all times and nearly-guaranteed growth.

Why should your logistics business leverage the power of mobile technology?

We thought you’d never ask. If seamless communication, reduced incidents of pilferage and fraud, lowered maintenance costs and high returns are not enough, here’s some more food for thought:

Mobile apps can help you outperform the competition by taking your business online and reaping the benefits of monetizing the on-demand economy. This will foster growth and reduce your reliance on walk-ins—opening up a world of on-demand customers for you.

If you are looking for growth, better opportunities, and high returns, you are at the right place. With Volumetree’s vast experience in building innovative, world-class logistics platforms and apps for their customers, they can help you make a mark in the logistics world.

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