When your company revenue relies on no digitial proof of delivery processes that involve physical documents with hand-written notes or rifling through hordes of filed paperwork, it can be nearly impossible to have visibility on current status of deliveries.
It takes time and money to manually manage paperwork, capture delivery details and track down physical documentation for proof of transactions. Not only is this wasting company resources but it’s entirely unnecessary and inefficient.
Automating proof of delivery (POD) processes takes a fraction of the time compared to traditional, manual methods. Finding information is quick and easy because notes, receipts, and purchase details are digitally recorded for immediate ease of access.
Automating these processes means transparency across all sectors. To successfully manage POD processes, it’s essential to have visibility and control so you can maintain accuracy and understand if any issues need to be addressed before they get out of hand.
You can achieve six key benefits by having improved visibility and control over your POD processes:
1. Improving internal processes
For internal processes, having visibility can highlight any shortfalls or areas that need more attention. This may be in relation to preparation time, invoicing or a particular product. By having an automated digital process reducing manual errors, you’ll receive an accurate view on performance and trading.
2. Monitoring deliveries
Being able to track deliveries is crucial. By digitalising this system, it becomes easier to monitor deliveries in transit, schedule upcoming deliveries, and obtain customer signatures on arrival for records. This method increases accuracy, timeliness, customer satisfaction, and can save unnecessary costs spent to replace stolen or lost goods. A digital record can be accessed by all in the company to follow up on progress, or to use as proof for any customer disputes.
3. Making informed decisions
Informed decisions can only be made when you have all the details on current company performance, which means that you need to be able to view what’s happening with deliveries throughout the entire delivery cycle. Your company could be losing time and resources due to small issues that you may not notice until you take a step back and look at the overall picture. If you’re using the traditional, manual POD processes then it’s easy to overlook these small issues that can quickly add up.
4. Noting industry and company trends
It’s important to make sure your company keeps up to date with industry news and trends. Having complete visibility on current processes can help you identify trends, patterns, and areas for future improvement. It can also indicate if targets and KPIs are being met with current processes.
5. Being proactive
Proactive planning for the future in terms of growth, targets and company goals benefits all staff as they have clear objectives to work towards. But, to be proactive, you have to understand the current challenges and the areas of concern for the company. This may also include a need for more staff training on certain procedures, for example.
6. Creating an engaged workplace
When your staff can work together towards common goals, and have sufficient training to do their roles, they are usually more motivated and engaged in their work.
Using manual processes, tasks such as planning, tracking and gathering information took hours. But, by having a digital solution in place for POD systems, you can eliminate this tedious work and gain instant visibility and control over these processes, and have the resources to make accurately-informed decisions, improving your staffs job satisfaction.
Visibility and control over your POD processes can improve your company’s reputation and increase growth. For more information on how you can implement digital POD systems to streamline your business, contact Upstream today.