The small things we're doing to make logistics better in 2023
Even with 26 years of experience under our belt, we still come to realize at the end of every year that we’ve learned something new from the shipments we’ve handled. And that’s great! Not learning anything new sounds awful, even for experienced professionals.
We’ve listed below some of the things we learned last year and will be continuing in 2023. Perhaps we share similar thoughts?
Track turnaround times
Speed and promptness are key elements of logistics — not just on the road, but also in communication. Since the latter part of 2022, we’ve started tracking our teams’ turnaround times, both internally and externally. We've set up a system to monitor how fast we're responding to forwarding- and brokerage-relevant correspondence. As they say, the early bird gets the early worm.
Guarantee accuracy and consistency
Even the smallest inconsistencies in shipping and clearing documents can be costly. Although many of these documents are provided by clients, forwarders and customs brokers still share the responsibility in reviewing document details, making sure they're correct and up to date. Similar to what we’ve been doing in the past, we’re continuing making accuracy a priority this year.
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Monitor customers' permits
Ensuring the validity of our regular customers’ import and export permits is technically not part of our duties (unless they specifically request documentation assistance), but we keep track of them anyway. We remind them to renew ahead of time so their incoming shipments are not affected.
Ask for fresh ideas
Many years-old (decades-old?) logistics trends and practices remain exactly the same to this day. The market is changing, and even in an industry that's slow to adopt to trends, we have to introduce change if we want to remain competitive. We’ve talked with our younger team members to ask them what we can improve, and we've definitely received some fresh inputs. We're excited to see what we can do with these suggestions in 2023.
Open to sharing your logistics tips? Share your thoughts here.