Characterize your sales volumes, based on the different types of retailers you serve, through analysis of your order history data.

Determine your strategy for the sales process. Can your delivery staff provide the time required to deal with presales that are useful for planning, or are they too busy? Will that capacity then come back to your representatives? The review will determine the deployment that best matches your resources.

Organize routes: Route planning solutions to pay for themselves by enhancing your ability not to omit any of the variables to be considered for route optimization, such as distances, hours of service, capacity trucks, speed limits, number of stops, etc.

With DSD software and the right mobile devices, including a barcode reader, your delivery people will see their operations become faster and more efficient. They will be able to produce receipts and invoices directly at the point of sale, and keep digitized proof of delivery including signature capture, preventing disputes over deliveries. GPS and remote communication from mobile devices will give you a real-time view of transactions and the location of your vehicles. The DSD solution includes on-board inventory control, protecting you against loss or theft of merchandise.

Finally, the advanced analysis features will allow you to interpret your delivery and order data, so as to obtain a precise portrait of the demand for a category of products, for a territory, for a chain, for a single store, etc.

Likewise, analyzing product returns will allow you to provide customers with the most relevant inventory recommendations, increasing profitability for each customer.

We see that product lines, like assortments, are not only expanding, but changing more quickly. There are also more promotions. Delivery times tend to shorten, and to all this is added seasonality and / or volatility of demand, which must remain a constant concern if one wishes, to maintain the greatest efficiency, to optimize the quantity and the availability of the merchandise.

Optimization is also essential to compensate for increased costs, whether they relate to labor, or to rules and restrictions, or to traffic congestion, especially in urban areas.

Attention should be focused on both streamlining vehicle loading and optimizing roads. Among the practices that result in reduced costs:

Move from static planning to dynamic planning (frequent re-examination in order to anticipate the adjustments required in the deployment of resources to respond to changes such as peaks or seasonality in demand; new customers, routes; or even to react last-minute addition or cancellation of an order).

Move from decentralized planning to centralized planning (taking into account all resources to increase adaptability).

Promote transparency and visibility, so that both the retailer and the carrier have better control over their actions in relation to the supply chain.

Optimize the use of truck space and temperature-controlled areas by streamlining loads.

The combination of the software solutions mentioned (DSD mobile solution and route optimization tool) brings a host of benefits, including the following:

• Efficiency in the field, saving up to an hour per day on each route.
• Savings on transport costs, up to 15%.
• Customers satisfied by respecting delivery deadlines.
• Employee satisfaction enhanced by planning a realistic workload.
• Reduced mileage and carbon footprint.
• In terms of material equipment: savings in resources and reduced costs when using cloud solutions.