Oracle's cloud-based Warehouse & Transportation brings significant agility and resilience to logistics & warehousing operations.
Today’s modern dynamic supply chains pose unique challenges to logistics service providers. This includes creating an agile and coherent logistics system covering various components of SCM. With multiple systems to manage these activities, logistics service providers often become less agile and face issues due to the lack of a single source of truth.
With 1B USD, A Middle East-based global logistics solutions leader employs 5000+ associates across more than 25 countries. Before our engagement, the client was running a complete contract logistics process with a 10-year-old legacy system in multiple operational systems working in silos. This led to a disjointed customer experience and little to no internal or external collaboration. The application was not scalable and configured with complex customizations and redundant architecture—all of this cost significant person-hours, time, and money to maintain.
In search of agility and operational resilience powered by nimble and robust IT solutions, the organization undertook a digital transformation initiative. As part of this initiative, it engaged Birlasoft to help them achieve their business outcomes. We helped the client implement Oracle’s OTM & WMS Cloud solution.
Birlasoft’s comprehensive Contract Logistics solution – which covers complete transportation and warehouse logistics activities – enabled this global logistics service provider to become more agile, smart, and quick.
Post implementation, the client could handle complex processes involving multiple iterations and stakeholders with simple out-of-the-box configurations and rules. In contrast, integrated Business Intelligence (BI) analytics and dashboard reports kept the teams up to date on productivity levels and the state of business operations in real-time.
The Challenge
1: Rising operational complexity resulting in suboptimal results
The company lacked uniformity in the business processes followed in its warehouses. On a global scale, the lack of streamlined business processes meant operational chaos. The company's archaic scheduling method led to control issues in its billing systems. A lack of automation meant the company had to deploy some of its staff to intervene whenever something went wrong manually.
2: Obsolete business processes causing operational bottlenecks
Despite being two sides of the same coin, transportation and warehousing followed processes that were distinct from each other, preventing the company from introducing efficiencies and synergies. As most of its operations were performed on isolated systems, the company also faced legal compliance issues in taxation. Its existing methods to optimize its resources for route planning and fleet maintenance were inadequate. With the rise in products that require cold storage capabilities, the company also needed to revamp its existing warehousing processes to accommodate both dry and cold warehousing.
3: Lack of visibility leading to significant oversight
An increase in deal flows also brought with it a concurrent increase in 3rd-party contracts and bills, which proved challenging to manage with the existing systems. A slew of operational systems, none of which worked in conjunction with each other, meant that the company was spending a good chunk of its time stitching operations together. This was all the more tedious as the company had no means of facilitating collaboration within the company or outside of it. The lack of a digital strategy meant the company had no real-time visibility of its operations. This caused delays in resolving issues impacting operational efficiency and resource utilization.
The Solution
1: Modernizing existing operations through Oracle’s Cloud Platform
Given the client's precarious position, we began by architecting an integrated contract logistics solution that shipped with configurable constituents. This meant that the company could tinker with its WMS and OTM systems while delegating much of the financial processes to Oracle's Fusion Cloud Financials. We also enabled real-time tracking of all key SCM assets. We implemented a system leveraging the latest advances in operations research to optimize driver assignments and manage their fleets.
2: Automating billing processes across all functions
Given how central billing was to uninterrupted operations, we instituted a bolt-on billing solution that automated the service billing processes of the entire warehouse. This brought the firm one step closer to achieving uniformity in business processes amongst all its warehouses. All transportation processes were delegated to computer-driven systems, and we united the billing functions of both the warehousing and transportation departments by consolidating and centralizing them.
3: Implemented real-time tracking capabilities
We also implemented platforms that gave the client real-time monitoring capabilities. We built a solution to automatically calculate VAT and display it in real-time through a PaaS platform. Shipments were tracked and traced through Oracle’s IoT technologies, and we built a dedicated driver mobile application for relaying key tracking information to the people on the field.
The Impact
By implementing Oracle OTM & WMS Cloud, we enabled our clients to transfer their business core onto the cloud, helping them realize agility, scalability, and security aligned with the enterprise's roadmap and long-term business objectives.
Moreover, our client can now execute core business processes digitally without relying on external IT vendors. Leveraging the OIC platform and implementing a seamless integration with the different applications, we ensured that our client’s teams no longer had to transfer information or metadata manually, through emails, or via phone calls.
In addition, here are some of the key benefits:
- 20% reduction in cost deviation (Planned Vs. Actual)
- 100% accuracy in VAT calculation through automation, resulting in efficiency improvement by 90%
- 15% Increase in effective space utilization resulting in the onboarding of approx. 30% of new customers in the same facility
- 10% increase in warehouse 3PL billing revenue
- 20% efficiency improvement through automated system driven put away
- 70% reduction in time for transport order booking and planning through the integrated logistic solution
- 30% efficiency improvement in cost and revenue booking through contract compliances
Following the shift to Oracle cloud, our client now has complete visibility over all internal business metrics and can view information relating to customers, vendors, and partners on a single platform. This collectively results in a single source of truth for all divisions in the company, thereby eliminating discrepancies between teams operating in different geographies.
Meet Birlasoft at
the 2024 OTM User Conference Americas
the 2024 OTM User Conference Americas
August 4 – 7, 2024
Loews Hotel, Philadelphia, PA
Loews Hotel, Philadelphia, PA
