technologyreview
BY PETER BRADLEY, EDITORIAL DIRECTOR
4steps
to TMS
success
Installing a
transportation
management
system can yield
big savings and
boost your
customer service—
but you have to
do it right.
IN A RECENT POSTING IN “LOGISTICS VIEWPOINTS,” AN ONLINE NEWSLETTER
published by ARC Advisory Group, analyst Steve Banker reflected on two companies that
had recently implemented transportation management systems (TMS) with an eye to
reducing costs and improving service.
In one case, the company achieved its goals, wrote Banker, a member of ARC’s supply chain
and logistics consulting team. But in the second case, the firm had only limited success.
What made the difference, Banker concluded, was not the software, but how the customer managed the implementation. The first company had strong executive support. The
second had a sales team that ignored the TMS forecasts for delivery times, promising faster
service to win business—a move that ultimately led to complaints about “late” deliveries.
He wrote, “When I have talked to companies with failed supply chain implementations,
they typically do not blame the software company. Rather, they admit that the fault was
their own, usually because they couldn’t change their internal culture, especially if a proj-
ect requires the sales force to change the way it wants to do business.”
In an interview with DC VELOCITY, Banker expanded on that theme. “When I talk to
end users who have had bad implementations, they often say that while they would like
to blame the TMS vendor, they have to admit that they have to take a lot of the blame,”
he said. “They did not have enough buy-in, they did not have enough training, they did
not have good project management skills.”
So how can companies avoid these pitfalls and ensure a successful implementation? We
asked several experts for their advice. What follows are their four steps to TMS success:
1Build the case. “It starts with the business case,” Banker says. “You need to under- stand that clearly.” He explains that the potential returns from a TMS implementa- tion will vary by the type of organization and that it’s important to be realistic
