Container Tracking is harder than you think
India ranked a lowly 44th in the Logistics Performance Index (LPI), last released in 2018. The rankings depended on factors such as each country’s trade and transport infrastructure quality, the ease of conducting reasonably priced international shipments, the frequency with which shipments reach consignees within the ETA, the reliability of infrastructure available to track and trace shipments dynamically, and the overall efficiency of each country’s logistics services.
Additionally, the logistics costs of India’s supply chains are incredibly high too — amounting to nearly 14% of the country’s GDP. Some of the reasons for the high logistics costs are low supply chain predictability, poor visibility, and an overdependence on road transport.
While both the stats listed above talk about the overall macroeconomy, they are also highly relevant to your business and shipping operations.
Also, as we can see from these two points, optimal supply chain visibility is common to both making your shipments faster and lowering the supply chain costs for your business. However, container tracking of shipments can be challenging for your business due to various reasons.
Why container tracking is hard for Indian shippers
As you know, ocean freight is a part of your larger supply chain. Therefore, to improve container tracking, you will have to resolve some other related supply chain problems. Some such problems are listed below:
Lack of digitization
The countries ranking high on the LPI have one thing in common — technology-driven supply chain channels. Over the last decade, digitization has become a non-negotiable requirement for handling the burgeoning consumer demand in e-commerce. Today’s e-commerce market is highly saturated, with consumers having several purchase options for all types of goods and services. To survive and thrive amidst such cut-throat competition, incorporating digital tools at every stage in your supply chain is necessary. Geo-tagging tools, data capture sensors and other similar IoT-based tools make dynamic tracking possible for your consignments while they move from one point to another in your supply chain. Generally, disruptions are one of the major causes of high logistics costs, such as demurrage and other penalties. Digital tools allow logistics managers in your organization to pre-empt or detect disruptions along your supply chain at an early stage. Automating your packaging process allows you to save on wages and other personnel-related costs by helping to reduce your workforce by 20–25%.
However, like in most developing countries, the level of digitization in Indian supply chains is rather low. Indian shippers do not have the necessary infrastructure required to support full-fledged digitization of your procurement, production, packaging, delivery and other supply chain processes. Additionally, a lack of skilled workers who can expertly operate digital tools and applications is one of the main issues affecting visibility in the supply chains of Indian shippers.
Despite all these points, there is room for optimism for Indian shippers. Digitization is expected to grow multifold in the shipping sector, with certain estimates forecasting that 80–90% of the supply chain operations in India to be digitized by 2030.
Communication issues
The lack of digitization creates information silos at different phases along the supply chains of Indian shippers. Information silos form due to a lack of communication technologies, as well as if the information management systems of a shipping business do not freely communicate with the information management systems of their service partners or other businesses in the supply chain. Such communication gaps are generally the result of management in shipping businesses believing that the sharing of information is not a major requirement, which results in external stakeholders or service partners being unable to access that information. Ultimately, broken down communication channels lead to unnecessary time and money wastage for shippers. Silos and gaps can emerge in the communication channels between shippers and specialized service providers as well as between individual service providers.
For example, a breakdown in communication due to lack of collaborative digitization between, say, a trucking company that is responsible for transporting your goods from your warehouse to a nearby port and the freight transporter may cause avoidable penalties as a result of the cumulative delays along the way. Even if both the trucker and container service use digitization in their respective operations, a communication gap between the two still causes problems for shippers. Resolving such problems requires the presence of a unified monitoring and tracking platform that enables shippers to have end-to-end tracking even when multiple transport modes are used to transport goods from one point in the supply chain to another.
Several visibility limitations in freight shipping arise from a lack of data tracking points in the supply chain. Most logistics service providers may only facilitate data collection and tracking at the beginning and end of a shipment. As you know, vessels may need to make multiple stops during a freight journey, especially in the case of transshipment deliveries. So, more tracking points are necessary to improve visibility in your supply chain.
A digital freight forwarder or third-party tracking service provider resolves all the issues that hinder container tracking. Choosing the right service partner can enable you to have up to 10 different tracking points along the shipment route. This maximizes freight data collection, which allows you to have high visibility in your freight shipments from the starting point to the ultimate destination. Additionally, such service providers employ many experts who can verify the correctness of the tracking data. This much-needed human touch makes container tracking less error-ridden.
Basically, to perfect container tracking, it is necessary for every company in your supply chain to be a part of a connected logistics network. Solving digitization and communication issues eliminates almost all the other problems in a modern supply chain.
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