The lack of collaboration among supply chain partners is one of the most significant challenges in the transport logistics industry. Studies state that missing visibility and lack of transparency result in a decrease of productivity, hindering business processes. This leads to information loss that causes delays, errors, and inefficiencies, resulting in costs that negatively impact the complete supply chain.

Best practices in supply chain collaboration employ different strategies to overcome specific challenges and show how partners in the supply chain collaborate in a multitude of ways.

• Subcontracting and tendering are helpful to book cost-efficient capacities with forwarders or carriers through seamless B2B communication, assuring customer satisfaction and transport cost optimization.
• Track & trace capabilities are employed to improve collaboration in shipment monitoring and tracking. It allows for real-time positioning of goods in the supply chain, improving risk identification and mitigation. This enables proactive measures to reduce shipment delays.
• Collaboration processes for shipment dock management are employed to streamline operations, reduce waiting times and congestion, and thus reduce transportation costs.
• In the invoice management process, Collaboration in the invoice management process improves process efficiency and invoice and dispute management process times, which means less waiting for money.

Addressing the challenges around transport logistics and freight collaboration is essential to ensure a smooth and efficient operation of the supply chain. This requires an orchestrated effort to invest in digital technologies, establish clear communication channels and guidelines, and streamline processes to reduce delays and increase efficiency. Until recently, tools to implement the above-mentioned process were standalone, mostly cloud-based solutions, developed for one specific purpose. Although these tools can work well, mostly they do not fit in the overall IT-strategy roadmaps.

SAP has developed a network solution that is able to cover all the required collaboration processes within a single platform that seamlessly integrates into the overall SAP landscape. As such, it fits well within the overall strategy of companies within the SAP ecosystem. As a benefit, tons of companies across all industries are already onboarded to the network for all freight collaboration processes.