Running a logistics or transport business and increasing the revenue becomes harder if you don’t focus on the important aspects. The guide is all about how you can run a profitable goods forwarding business PAN India.
We will see some of the interesting tactics you can use. When you’re running a transport business, management becomes the hardest part. There is a lot of manpower needed. further, you also need to manage the booking and service offices.
Now, there are two main parts you need to figure out. The first one is marketing and getting more customers for your transport business. This is where you need to put out your business in front of the audience who wants it. One can take advantage of digital tech for it.
The other part is all about management. This will decide the profitability of your transport business. The logistics business is where there are many branches. It becomes harder to manage everything. Therefore, you will need to find the right techniques to help you. This guide has various parts where we will each of the facts that affect the logistics business. By the end of the guide, you will come to know how to run a profitable business.
(a) Business Marketing
The first part is all about business marketing. As a transport business, you will have to focus on local marketing. The local marketing includes newspapers and hoardings. You can also go with online-offline marketing techniques. Online marketing is where you can either go with social media marketing or you provide value with your website.
As you are running a B2B business, you need to focus on the right place where the business owners hang out. For a logistics business, you need to find the businesses that are constantly using logistics. If you want an example, you can target the service business. If someone is running a service center, they might want to send the product to the main company’s warehouse to get a new product. You can partner up with this. One can find such clients from online-offline marketing both. The B2B clients can also be found using social media marketing.
(b) Network Management (Booking Office)
If you are running the transport business PAN India, you will have many networks/branches. This will include service branches, booking agencies, and even warehouses. You need to manage the branch in the best way possible.
People often think everything works in automation. However, this is the reason why businesses fail. You need to maintain proper communication with all the branches. Further, you as an owner should have all the updates from all the branches across the country. It applies even if you have branches outside India.
You don’t need to be in contact with everyone. Instead, you can have a meeting with the managers of the branches. Most people only are in contact with the booking agency instead of all the branches. Check out the financials of all the branches and decide how you want to grow. You should also create regular reports for the same.
(c) Manpower
Staff management will be the core reason why your profit is not going up. Once you get the updates from the branches, you need to manage the manpower. You can create a proper indoor-outdoor staff management strategy for all your logistics business.
Every employee working for you must know how you operate. When the staff knows what your mission and vision are, they will work towards it. You should also arrange meetings regularly. The branch manager can discuss everything with the staff and send you the updates.
With the right technology, you can also do it online where you can be a part of it. People often miss out the outdoor staff management. There are no updates from the person who goes for the delivery or the driver. This brings us to the next topic which is all about staff training. It’s part of indoor-outdoor staff management.
(d) Trained Staff
It’s not only important to hire professional staff but it’s also important for you to provide training for them. This will increase productivity from their side. If you are using software (which you should use), you also need to provide training on the software. Many drivers and workers don’t know how to use the app for transport management. This delays the updates from their side.
For drivers, it’s also important to provide training about security as well. If a person is responsible for communicating with the clients, you need to ensure that proper communication training is provided. To maintain a professional environment, you can also provide uniforms.
You can always try to scale up the business when needed. Transport and logistics businesses in India need a lot of staffing. Therefore, don’t think too much when you want to hire professional staff. You should do it.
(e) Vehicle
Small mismanagement in the vehicles and your transport company could incur losses worth lakhs.
First, you need to have a proper truck management system. We highly recommend you to use the truck management software here. This will help you in managing the trucks in the right way. You can save many precious hours when you know where the truck has reached and the estimated time on when it will reach the destination.
In the meantime, you can keep the unloaders ready who can start the work as soon as the truck comes over. Along with truck management, it’s also important to have proper driver management. Driver management will allow you to assign the right driver to the truck depending on the work they have done. It won’t make any sense to allocate the same driver who has driven the truck for more than 12 hours. You can simply assign a different driver who is free at that time.
(f) Goods Handling Equipment
Many transport businesses in India have problems with goods handling equipment. They either don’t have the right folk lift and conveyor or they are not available at the time when the truck arrives. So, if you have the cash flow, you can assign the budget to goods handling types of equipment.
Regular repairing is much needed when it comes to the goods handling equipment. You can have regular maintenance of this equipment. They are used to lift heavy weights. Therefore, if one of the folk lifts doesn’t work at the end time, you will end up delaying many items. Therefore, make sure the folk life and conveyor are working properly and regularly maintained. You can add the details in the business management system to know when to keep the conveyor ready. The app will automatically send you reminders.
(g) Business Management System
Now comes the final part, the business management system. You can always install a proper logistics or transport management system for your business. The logistics management system will help you with planning and assigning the right resources at the right time.
You can have the updates of the drivers and from the management team. As we mentioned earlier, you will be able to create a proper strategy for distributing the work. It fulfills the management need of warehousing, trucks, manpower, and customers, and it will also help you in managing your strategies for working. It will not only save your time but will also help you in increasing profits.
Overall, it will help you in managing your transport company in the most efficient way possible. You can contact Bharat Software Solutions (BSS) for a complete management system. Our team will contact you with further details and we can also schedule a demo if required.
