WMS providers adapt to pandemic-driven challenges by getting creative with remote implementation and training—and in the process, improve their service capabilities.
Victoria Kickham started her career as a newspaper reporter in the Boston area before moving into B2B journalism. She has covered manufacturing, distribution and supply chain issues for a variety of publications in the industrial and electronics sectors, and now writes about everything from forklift batteries to omnichannel business trends for DC Velocity.
Demand for remote technology implementation took off last year, as the pandemic forced companies to limit human interaction in their facilities. For many software vendors, this meant a quick switch to the way they research, develop, and carry out complex projects—especially in the warehouse, where being on site allows a firsthand view of processes, problems, bottlenecks, and other critical issues. For warehouse management system (WMS) providers in particular, developing a distance-based protocol has created a whole new approach to understanding customers’ challenges and developing the right solutions.
“If you’re a software vendor … there’s a benefit to being on site,” explains Don White, CEO of Synergy North America Inc., developer of the cloud-based WMS SnapFulfil. “Translating the end quality of those interactions and bringing them remote [is challenging]. Can the customer be as successful if I’m not in the room? These are questions we had to answer.”
In answering those questions, WMS providers say they have adapted their approach to consulting, training, and delivering new solutions so they can best meet customer needs from a distance—a process some say will have lasting effects on the ways in which they interact with clients.
BUILDING A BETTER PROCESS
SnapFulfil began developing a remote implementation (RI) plan for its WMS well before the pandemic, but interest and adoption have soared since the program’s launch a year ago, White says. The RI program allows onboarding of the WMS from anywhere in the world within a matter of weeks and also provides customized virtual support and training. Essentially, the program is a document that guides managers and staff through the implementation process, offering online training, development, and consulting support along the way. Developing the product required SnapFulfil to rethink its approach to service and retrain its project managers with a focus on curiosity and questioning—especially in the early phases of project development, White reports.
“We worked a lot on our project teams being curious [because] you don’t get the depth of answer if you’re remote,” he explains. “The way we interact today is a lot more Socratic; we ask why business processes are the way they are. This requires the customer to give it a bit more thought, and it’s a different approach for the project manager too.”
Training and education have changed considerably as well. Typically, project leaders will conduct three full days of on-site training, White says, but with the RI program, they provide two- to three-hour sessions over five or six days. In addition to reducing screen time, the process also allows employees to step away from the classroom and handle other aspects of their job that are often difficult or stressful to put aside during a traditional technology implementation.
“We’ve changed our training methodology to give them more flexibility,” White explains, adding that the increased flexibility benefits SnapFulfil as well. “A project team descending on a facility is, by nature, disruptive. [Being remote] allows you to more tightly schedule calls with different resources at the client, so you can be more flexible in how and when you [engage with them].”
White describes SnapFulfil as a highly configurable WMS suited for a wide range of businesses—from the Etsy-based entrepreneur all the way up to large multilocation enterprises. The company’s earliest RI implementations occurred in the first few months of 2020, but the pandemic accelerated the use of that model. White says the shift to RI helped SnapFulfil initiate or continue eight projects in 2020, four of which had gone live by the end of the year.
“We were in process [with the RI program], but the catalyst for speeding it to market was the pandemic,” White says, emphasizing customers’ changing service needs in a remote environment. “Adversity breeds solutions. We had a successful year closing new business. To do that, you have to be good at the service piece.”
TAPPING INTO NEW TECH TOOLS
SnapFulfil is not alone when it comes to facing down such challenges. Managers at Zethcon Corp., which specializes in WMS for third-party logistics service providers (3PLs), say the pandemic necessitated a sharper focus on the tools it uses to communicate with clients during project implementation—a factor that helped smooth projects that were already well underway last spring, according to Lance Jordan, Zethcon’s director of professional service.
“As an organization, we were prepared,” says Jordan, adding that project leaders were scheduled to be on site with a client to implement Zethcon’s Synapse WMS when the pandemic hit last March. “We reset. We had to leverage new tools.”
Zethcon’s first step was to upgrade its internal business platform to a more robust program for video conferencing, document sharing, and so forth. The change helped accommodate broader use of those tools as employees and projects went remote. The company also got creative with existing technology; in lieu of a site visit, clients were asked to take cellphone videos of their facilities as project development began, for example.
“We need to see what the building looks like,” Jordan explains. “In the absence of being there, we relied on video. We typically want to be in the room with our clients—to create that relationship from the beginning. We had to manage all of that on a fully remote basis.”
Zethcon’s training regimen changed as well. Training sessions were chopped into smaller blocks, using multiple trainers instead of a single one as a way to keep clients engaged, Jordan explains.
Zethcon applied these principles to a Synapse implementation for a 3PL last spring, first targeting a pilot facility in Philadelphia and then bringing on a second facility, in Toronto. A local Zethcon representative was eventually able to visit the Philadelphia site, but due to ongoing travel restrictions, the WMS provider had not set foot in the Canadian facility as of this January. Both facilities were live with the WMS by the end of 2020, and Zethcon was set to begin deploying robotics at the Philadelphia site this year. Jordan says the company will begin a project at a third facility for the same 3PL on the West Coast this spring.
“There was no slowing down for sure; we just had to get creative with our communication, our reporting, and how we manage things,” Jordan says of the project. “I think in the end, when the dust settles in late February and early March, [this client] will have gotten about a million square feet, possibly, on the system within 12 months.”
Michael Wohlwend, managing principal of systems integrator Alpine Supply Chain Solutions, agrees there is no slowdown in sight, noting that demand for WMS software is up and will continue to rise in 2021. He also agrees that remote implementation strategies make that work harder and place a greater emphasis on vendors’ and integrators’ creativity in delivering service.
In lieu of site visits, Alpine, too, utilized virtual tours as a way to “really understand how the operation works to help with the design process,” Wohlwend reports. He adds that the company will continue to utilize those strategies as needed, especially as demand for technology grows.
“We just finished our sixth [WMS] selection, and now we’re strategizing on our eighth implementation in the last year,” he says, emphasizing a strong outlook for enterprise solutions. “Demand is way up.”
States across the Southeast woke up today to find that the immediate weather impacts from Hurricane Helene are done, but the impacts to people, businesses, and the supply chain continue to be a major headache, according to Everstream Analytics.
The primary problem is the collection of massive power outages caused by the storm’s punishing winds and rainfall, now affecting some 2 million customers across the Southeast region of the U.S.
One organization working to rush help to affected regions since the storm hit Florida’s western coast on Thursday night is the American Logistics Aid Network (ALAN). As it does after most serious storms, the group continues to marshal donated resources from supply chain service providers in order to store, stage, and deliver help where it’s needed.
Support for recovery efforts is coming from a massive injection of federal aid, since the White House declared states of emergency last week for Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Affected states are also supporting the rush of materials to needed zones by suspending transportation requirement such as certain licensing agreements, fuel taxes, weight restrictions, and hours of service caps, ALAN said.
E-commerce activity remains robust, but a growing number of consumers are reintegrating physical stores into their shopping journeys in 2024, emphasizing the need for retailers to focus on omnichannel business strategies. That’s according to an e-commerce study from Ryder System, Inc., released this week.
Ryder surveyed more than 1,300 consumers for its 2024 E-Commerce Consumer Study and found that 61% of consumers shop in-store “because they enjoy the experience,” a 21% increase compared to results from Ryder’s 2023 survey on the same subject. The current survey also found that 35% shop in-store because they don’t want to wait for online orders in the mail (up 4% from last year), and 15% say they shop in-store to avoid package theft (up 8% from last year).
“Retail and e-commerce continue to evolve,” Jeff Wolpov, Ryder’s senior vice president of e-commerce, said in a statement announcing the survey’s findings. “The emergence of e-commerce and growth of omnichannel fulfillment, particularly over the past four years, has altered consumer expectations and behavior dramatically and will continue to do so as time and technology allow.
“This latest study demonstrates that, while consumers maintain a robust
appetite for e-commerce, they are simultaneously embracing in-person shopping, presenting an impetus for merchants to refine their omnichannel strategies.”
Other findings include:
• Apparel and cosmetics shoppers show growing attraction to buying in-store. When purchasing apparel and cosmetics, shoppers are more inclined to make purchases in a physical location than they were last year, according to Ryder. Forty-one percent of shoppers who buy cosmetics said they prefer to do so either in a brand’s physical retail location or a department/convenience store (+9%). As for apparel shoppers, 54% said they prefer to buy clothing in those same brick-and-mortar locations (+9%).
• More customers prefer returning online purchases in physical stores. Fifty-five percent of shoppers (+15%) now say they would rather return online purchases in-store–the first time since early 2020 the preference to Buy Online Return In-Store (BORIS) has outweighed returning via mail, according to the survey. Forty percent of shoppers said they often make additional purchases when picking up or returning online purchases in-store (+2%).
• Consumers are extremely reliant on mobile devices when shopping in-store. This year’s survey reveals that 77% of consumers search for items on their mobile devices while in a store, Ryder said. Sixty-nine percent said they compare prices with items in nearby stores, 58% check availability at other stores, 31% want to learn more about a product, and 17% want to see other items frequently purchased with a product they’re considering.
Ryder said the findings also underscore the importance of investing in technology solutions that allow companies to provide customers with flexible purchasing options.
“Omnichannel strength is not a fad; it is a strategic necessity for e-commerce and retail businesses to stay competitive and achieve sustainable success in 2024 and beyond,” Wolpov also said. “The findings from this year’s study underscore what we know our customers are experiencing, which is the positive impact of integrating supply chain technology solutions across their sales channels, enabling them to provide their customers with flexible, convenient options to personalize their experience and heighten customer satisfaction.”
Transportation industry veteran Anne Reinke will become president & CEO of trade group the Intermodal Association of North America (IANA) at the end of the year, stepping into the position from her previous post leading third party logistics (3PL) trade group the Transportation Intermediaries Association (TIA), both organizations said today.
Meanwhile, TIA today announced that insider Christopher Burroughs would fill Reinke’s shoes as president & CEO. Burroughs has been with TIA for 13 years, most recently as its vice president of Government Affairs for the past six years, during which time he oversaw all legislative and regulatory efforts before Congress and the federal agencies.
Before her four years leading TIA, Reinke spent two years as Deputy Assistant Secretary with the U.S. Department of Transportation and 16 years with CSX Corporation.
As the hours tick down toward a “seemingly imminent” strike by East Coast and Gulf Coast dockworkers, experts are warning that the impacts of that move would mushroom well-beyond the actual strike locations, causing prevalent shipping delays, container ship congestion, port congestion on West coast ports, and stranded freight.
However, a strike now seems “nearly unavoidable,” as no bargaining sessions are scheduled prior to the September 30 contract expiration between the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) and the U.S. Maritime Alliance (USMX) in their negotiations over wages and automation, according to the transportation law firm Scopelitis, Garvin, Light, Hanson & Feary.
The facilities affected would include some 45,000 port workers at 36 locations, including high-volume U.S. ports from Boston, New York / New Jersey, and Norfolk, to Savannah and Charleston, and down to New Orleans and Houston. With such widespread geography, a strike would likely lead to congestion from diverted traffic, as well as knock-on effects include the potential risk of increased freight rates and costly charges such as demurrage, detention, per diem, and dwell time fees on containers that may be slowed due to the congestion, according to an analysis by another transportation and logistics sector law firm, Benesch.
The weight of those combined blows means that many companies are already planning ways to minimize damage and recover quickly from the event. According to Scopelitis’ advice, mitigation measures could include: preparing for congestion on West coast ports, taking advantage of intermodal ground transportation where possible, looking for alternatives including air transport when necessary for urgent delivery, delaying shipping from East and Gulf coast ports until after the strike, and budgeting for increased freight and container fees.
Additional advice on softening the blow of a potential coastwide strike came from John Donigian, senior director of supply chain strategy at Moody’s. In a statement, he named six supply chain strategies for companies to consider: expedite certain shipments, reallocate existing inventory strategically, lock in alternative capacity with trucking and rail providers , communicate transparently with stakeholders to set realistic expectations for delivery timelines, shift sourcing to regional suppliers if possible, and utilize drop shipping to maintain sales.
National nonprofit Wreaths Across America (WAA) kicked off its 2024 season this week with a call for volunteers. The group, which honors U.S. military veterans through a range of civic outreach programs, is seeking trucking companies and professional drivers to help deliver wreaths to cemeteries across the country for its annual wreath-laying ceremony, December 14.
“Wreaths Across America relies on the transportation industry to move the mission. The Honor Fleet, composed of dedicated carriers, professional drivers, and other transportation partners, guarantees the delivery of millions of sponsored veterans’ wreaths to their destination each year,” Courtney George, WAA’s director of trucking and industry relations, said in a statement Tuesday. “Transportation partners benefit from driver retention and recruitment, employee engagement, positive brand exposure, and the opportunity to give back to their community’s veterans and military families.”
WAA delivers wreaths to more than 4,500 locations nationwide, and as of this week had added more than 20 loads to be delivered this season. The wreaths are donated by sponsors from across the country, delivered by truckers, and laid at the graves of veterans by WAA volunteers.
Wreaths Across America
Transportation companies interested in joining the Honor Fleet can visit the WAA website to find an open lane or contact the WAA transportation team at trucking@wreathsacrossamerica.org for more information.