Automation can streamline processes such as inventory management, transportation schedules, and tracking of shipments. It can also eliminate the need for manual data entry, reducing the risk of errors. Additionally, automation can provide real-time data and analytics, allowing logistics companies to make more informed decisions and respond quickly to changes in demand or supply. Furthermore, Automation can also reduce human labor and increase the speed of operations, thus making the company more competitive in the market. Overall, the benefits of automation can help logistics companies improve their bottom line and provide better service to their customers.

1. File Conversion

Logistics companies can easily automate time-consuming tasks such as converting files from one format to another with a bot. Companies using this technology can quickly restore files from PDF to Excel, HTML, TXT, and other structures. A process like this saves time and ensures that the same file is converted every time there is an incoming shipment.

2. Pricing Strategies

Many logistics companies need help monitoring their pricing strategies. Did you know that a bot can automatically collect prices from multiple sources and compare them with their prices, providing them with better insights on how they measure up against their competition?

3. Dispute Management

When customers file disputes regarding shipping charges, refunds, or damaged goods, the logistics company must address these issues quickly. Companies can set up rules based on industry best practices and leverage machine learning algorithms to allow them to manage disputes promptly and efficiently without human error. In addition, this saves time and money since you do not need someone in an office all day manually handle conflicts after a dispute. Instead, a bot can complete this type of task in seconds. By leveraging machine learning algorithms, your company can detect trends in debates, so you know if something is going wrong with your shipping process that needs correction. This allows you to proactively fix issues instead of just reacting when customers complain about something, which may lead to lost business if you do not address the problem quickly enough.

4. Fraud Detection

Energy companies have significant financial transactions with their customers or service providers. They have sophisticated tools to reconcile their books, but they need people to analyze the data and look for anomalies that may indicate potential fraud. Using a bot to capture data as it comes into the system and identify patterns specific to fraud by reporting them in real-time, energy companies can use their human intelligence on other critical areas impacting their bottom line.

5. Customer Service Help Desk

Customer service help desks represent a significant portion of labor costs for most logistics companies, given how many calls they receive from customers regarding shipping-related issues such as claims, damaged goods, and more. Most of these calls are repetitive and follow predefined workflows like checking order statuses or refunding shipping charges; A bot can easily handle this task without needing an employee dedicated full-time to answering customer service calls

How do you get started?

As business and technology leaders look to leverage automation technologies, they frequently ask how to get started. The good news is that automation doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing decision. Here are some approaches to consider depending on your current level of maturity.

Gather Data

One of the most critical initial steps is to gather information about your business processes and related data sources. This will help you determine which areas have the highest potential return on investment from automation. At this stage, it can be less than 100% complete. You want a high-level understanding of your current processes so you can quantify their size, complexity, and value to the organization. This step will also provide the information needed for step 2 below - selecting an RPA tool.

Select a Tool

To get started with actual projects, you will need an application programming interface (API) to connect your systems of record (SORs) to an automation tool such as an RPA tool. Depending on your choice of API, you may require different technical skills,, such as Java or Net programming languages. Once you have selected your API technology, you want to ensure that the selected tool has connectors or APIs for your specific SORs, such as ERP systems, Salesforce, or NetSuite.

Test Drive

After you've gathered some initial information about your processes and data sources, it's an excellent time to test drive some automation scenarios using either a proof-of-concept project or developed use cases based on your findings above. Be sure to define success criteria before starting any work so that everyone knows what success looks like for these experiments

These pilot projects will help refine your understanding of potential ROI from automation across your entire portfolio of processes so that you can prioritize your next project accordingly. Keeping in mind that even if these pilot projects do not result in full automation, it's still considered a win because it reduces human error and provides better controls around exception handling at a low cost.