Solutions for the Transport & Logistics sector

Shipping

In the UK, nearly 600 million tonnes of goods are handled by the country's maritime ports. With environmental advantages over other modes of transport, relatively few capacity constraints and its recent history of deregulation, shipping is an expanding global business with major growth opportunities.

Against this backdrop, companies involved in the shipping industry are faced with a range of other factors and trends. Global supply chains have become the norm, as manufacturers respond to the challenge of delivering their products to market at an ever more reasonable cost, whilst retaining a decent margin. Meanwhile, many countries are placing a greater emphasis on coastal and short-sea shipping ("Cabotage") as a sustainable, environmentally-friendly alternative to road transport.

Difficulties in recruiting specialist staff, combined with a more general pursuit of lower labour costs has also led to many companies actively looking to avoid ownership of some or all of the infrastructure that supports the distribution cycle. This is evidenced by the current trend towards total or partial outsourcing of the processes involved in getting the raw materials, parts, subassemblies, finished products and packages to market.

Whether you're trying to make sense and advantage of today's trends or whichever ones come next, it doesn't matter - we can help. UNIT4 has continued (and will continue) to evolve its financial solutions to support the increased demand for flexible, efficient and fast logistics execution.

Road freight

Whether you're an ‘own transport' operation or an intermediary, we can help you be the envy of the industry in many ways. In order to meet the constantly changing needs of your organisation or customers, you need to deliver a wider and more personalised range of products and services. Whether that includes a greater involvement in the import/export cycle, offering third party logistics services or limited liability partnership / 4PL services, cross border expansion or simply refining your online services, UNIT4's flexible financial management solutions can cope with and integrate any new offline or online service, however customised.

The pressure is on, to reduce costs and improve yield management, but such operational efficiencies can only be achieved through discipline and rigorous controls. Our financial management solutions can analyse all of your data at any level of the ledger - across service centres, customers, trucking lanes, individual tractors and containers, even right down to a specific item of cargo or package on your "Less than Truckload" activities.

Just-in-time delivery is also here to stay. This means an increased focus on your delivery statistics, where there is now no margin for error. Our Coda financial management solutions enable you to anticipate, react to and manage all financial implications of changes in your day-to-day operations, including fluctuations in driver availability, acquisition opportunities, escalating insurance premiums, fuel price spikes and compliance with new engine emission standards.

Intermediaries

Achieving your goals in today's challenging and uncertain climate requires flexibility, operational efficiency and speed. The globalisation of the supply chain will continue despite the economy and unforeseen events. To meet the constantly changing needs of your customers in this increasingly complex trade environment requires you to deliver a wider and more personalised range of products and services as a matter of course. This could include having a greater involvement in the trucking and shipping cycle, a broader geographical focus, offering third party logisitics services or refining your online services.

The list is endless but the outcome is always the same - UNIT4 can help underpin your efforts to profitably introduce and maintain any new service or product.

Operational efficiency can only be achieved through disciplined yield management and rigorous cost controls. With our Coda solutions, you can analyse all of your data across the intermodal chain, including: individual agent, contractor or broker performance, hubs, customers, containers and even a specific item of cargo or package on your "less than Truckload" or "less than Container" activities.

At the same time, many customers are embracing just-in-time delivery, which places an unrelenting focus on the delivery infrastructure and your ability to ship faster within ever-tighter windows. There is no margin for error. Coda solutions can help you anticipate, react to and manage the financial implications of all eventualities, whilst at the same time allowing you to consider the longer-term commitments of the business.

Passenger rail

Unlike other forms of transportation, rail's market share and state of development vary dramatically around the world. The age and flexibility of infrastructure and vehicles, the degree of standardisation and compatibility between (and even within) territories' rail systems, models of private, public or mixed ownership, levels of government support and regulation mean the sector is extremely diverse.

Against this backdrop, companies trying to maximise the opportunities in the passenger rail industry are faced with a range of other factors and trends, and whether you're trying to make sense and advantage of today's trends or whichever ones come next, it doesn't matter - we can help. UNIT4's unrivalled portfolio of ERP and financial management products ensures that a company's financial processes and systems are transparent, well managed and intelligent.

Our Coda solutions provide the ability to handle the financial implications of everyday challenges...however unexpected...however complex...however demanding...however changeable. More importantly, you can confidently focus on what you do best - providing reliable, appealing, successful products and services that help your business realise more of the rail industry's untapped potential.

Rail freight

The rail freight industry is faced with a range of factors and trends, among them an overriding need to make costs both more visible and controllable - to keep stakeholders informed, to demonstrate appropriate use of external funds that have been invested and to manage the business more effectively. There are also increasing opportunities to move beyond traditional strengths in bulk shipments by providing trunk haulage of non-bulk freight flows. These do, however, involve investment in transfer facilities at either end, and need to offer clear benefits to customers in terms of speed/reliability of delivery, staffing/recruitment issues or overall cost.

A rapid increase in deep-sea shipping and a greater emphasis on coastal and short-sea shipping ("Cabotage") are likely to require increased terminal capacity, combined with an inward movement of freight by rail to reduce local environmental impacts. But this in turn needs rail infrastructure that can cope with the larger size of containers used by shipping lines.

The need to provide flexible, responsive solutions to meet customer expectations and compete effectively with other forms of transport is paramount, with the opportunities and threats of national rail networks being opened up to greater external competition. In Europe, for example, there is a stated aim of achieving a far more integrated European transport network - but issues remain around interoperability and available capacity.

Whether you're trying to make sense and advantage of today's trends or whichever ones come next, it doesn't matter - we can help. UNIT4 has continued (and will continue) to evolve its business management and financial solutions to support the increased demands of even the fastest-moving sectors.

Our unrivalled portfolio of products ensures that a company's financial processes and systems are transparent, well managed and intelligent.

Aviation

Air travel has seen impressive levels of growth in recent decades - in the EU, its growth rate has outstripped that of all other forms of transport. Since 1970, the volume of traffic at EU member airports has increased 5-fold. Meanwhile, in the UK, aviation is a major industry: carrying around 211 million passengers a year and year-on-year increases to volumes of freight; supporting the significant contribution to gross domestic product made by both inbound & outbound tourism.

Against this backdrop, companies trying to maximise the opportunities in the aviation industry are faced with a range of other related factors and trends, among them the costs and organisational issues of complying with regulatory and statutory requirements. On top of this, the need to provide modern, up-to-date facilities and travel environments in order to meet customer expectations for safety, health and comfort has to be implemented against wide variations in the manner and degree to which new security measures are being implemented - especially between EU member states and particularly for freight.

Whichever challenges your business faces - we can help. UNIT4 has continued (and will continue) to evolve its financial solutions to support the increased demands of the aviation sector.

Our unrivalled portfolio of products ensures that a company's financial processes and systems are transparent, well managed and intelligent.

Wholesale and distribution

In general, wholesale and distribution companies tend to have some similar characteristics. Firstly, they tend to have high volumes of transactions with low margins. This makes it very important to maximise efficiencies that can be gained from reducing debtor days, cash to bank processes, reducing credit notes and analyzing customer profitability.

Similarly, many operate a number of distribution centres across the UK, Europe or the globe. Using the same instance of financial software greatly assists big-picture analysis of the business as a whole, while providing certain autonomy to individual cost and profit centres.

At the same time, there is often a requirement for detailed reporting requirements. Monthly reports can often take many man-days of effort to produce, with resultant "packs" being delivered mid month, when ideally the information should be delivered far quicker and with much less effort.

Our Coda financial management software is proving to be an excellent fit for companies in this sector and our experience with wholesale and distribution companies has shown that they have a great many needs in common, including in-depth analysis of: sales; product movements; profitability by customer and by product; and effectiveness of promotions (i.e. while they are happening, not after the event); swift and efficient cash allocation (matching) to ensure credit limits are cleared; integrated front- and back-office to ensure one point of entry and one set of master files (such as "customers"); and separation of transaction engines from reporting databases plus speed and performance of the system itself. Read more about our solutions for the Wholesale & Distribution sector.