Manufacturers face high costs and complexity when executing ocean transportation across global supply chains due to a lack of accurate and accessible data from carriers and partners. This makes it difficult to streamline processes, measure performance, and improve strategies. Investing in a single cloud-based platform allows manufacturers to place bookings and shipping instructions, track milestones, and assess carriers, lowering costs through improved visibility, collaboration and decision making across their international operations.

1. © GT Nexus, Inc.
A STRATEGIC IMPERATIVE FOR MANUFACTURERS
Optimize Ocean Transportation Execution
How to Use a Single Platform to Manage Bookings and Shipping
Instructions across All Carriers

2. The Challenge
Executing ocean transportation is an expensive and time-consuming
process when supply chains span continents. In
trying to manage their transportation strategy, manufacturers
are met with a level of complexity that can result in high
administrative costs, diffi culty tracking activity, diffi culty
integrating with partners, and no reliable way to measure
performance against the original transportation plan.
The lack of accurate information in the ocean execution stage
makes it hard for manufacturers to streamline their activity
and make good decisions on improving their strategies. Tradi-tional
ERP systems do a decent job of tracking in-house data,
but executing ocean transportation requires high-quality data
from a multitude of partners and carriers across the globe.
User
Enterprise
User
User
Carrier
Carrier
Carrier
Impact of Poor Ocean Transportation Execution
When manufacturers don’t have the tools to effi ciently execute
their transportation strategy, they end up with suboptimal
performance and a lack of data to measure KPIs. Some nega-tive
effects include:
Struggle to manage many carriers multi-nationally
Manual, inconsistent processes between carriers
No notifi cation of port delays causing late shipments
No consistent method of carrier measurement
Diffi culty bridging the gap between plan and execution
processes
No historical records and “accurate evidence” of activities
The Root of the Problem
At the core of poor ocean transportation execution is the
level of accuracy and agility needed to operate a global
supply chain. Without the right technology, manufacturers
cannot accurately track data from carriers and partners in
their supply chain network.
1. Incredibly complicated landscape
Global transportation planning involves thousands of lanes
in many regions, with processes differing for each carrier.
Manufacturers experience:
Huge administrative burden
Fees and fi nes for late bookings
2. Decentralized operations
Each carrier in each geographical area has a unique process
for executing ocean transportation, leading to:
Reliance on external 3rd parties to do the work
Unreliable notifi cations that cause late shipments
Diffi culty integrating to 3PLs and freight forwarders on a
one-off basis
© GT Nexus, Inc.
2
Companies spend huge amounts of time and money executing across partner 3PLs and
carriers, often leading to sub-optimal results.
Managing many carriers and assessing their performance levels
becomes a convoluted, manual process without a cloud technology
platform on which to view activity.

3. Plant
Plant
Network
Connectivity
Agility
Rather than attempt to track
every movement manually dur-ing
shipments, companies need
to invest in cloud technology
that brings all relevant informa-tion
onto a single platform,
Customers
automatically.
Customer
DC / Warehouse
Plan
Actual At-Risk Delay
Dynamic ETA
B
A
Sense more accurately
Operate more efficiently
Respond faster
Make better decisions
3
The Solution
By investing in a single platform for placing bookings and
shipping instructions across all carriers, companies can lever-age
cloud technology to manage large global supply chains.
A centralized platform allows consistency across partner and
carrier data, tracking of milestones throughout the execution
stage, and assessment of performance based on quality KPIs.
Customer
EDI/XML
Load Plans
Booking/Tender
Shipment Execution Carriers
Track and analyze ocean transportation on a cloud-based
platform.
Allow shipping party to place bookings directly from orders
Workbench to process and manage planned shipments
Use execution platform to communicate with external
forwarders and carriers
How to use an ocean transportation execution
platform:
1. Ensure advanced notice of to-be shipments from shipping
sites
2. Use advanced tools to make good decisions on consolida-tion
and routing options
3. Monitor partner performance against expected SLAs for
shipment execution
Value Propositions
By managing ocean transporta-tion
in the cloud, manufacturers
can lower costs and reduce fees
while more accurately measuring
supply chain activity. The benefi ts
from improved ocean transporta-tion
execution include:
1. Reduce SG&A costs through
electronic collaboration
Track all ocean shipments on one centralized platform
2. Lower documentation fees by 75-100%
Use electronic register of receipts
3. Compress booking and documentation cycle time
Priority on electronic bookings and real-time documen-tation
registration
4 Improve working capital by decreasing DSO
Shorten time required to collect payments from cus-tomers
via L/C automation
5. Use exception-based management
Receive alerts when milestones are behind schedule or
projected to be late
Use carrier KPIs for scorecarding to compare actual vs.
contract SLA
Ocean Transportation Execution and the
Networked Company
To better manage ocean transportation in a complex global
supply chain, companies must transform themselves from silo-based,
inward-facing corporate operators to interconnected,
highly agile business network orchestrators.
Execution data is stored in the cloud, eliminating costly and time-consuming
manual processes.
User
ASN/Manifest
Shipment
Plans
Bill of Lading