Fixed costs are part of doing business. But have you stopped to consider what your deliveries are actually costing you? Like the cost of routes that were unplanned, unexpected re-routes, additional add-on delivery items, overtime, even drivers traveling off the grid for lunch.

Here's how those costs really affect your bottom line.

Consider the Following:

• The amount of trucks in your fleet.
• The amount of drivers, dispatch, and back office you have on staff.
• Do your drivers stay on a specified route?
• The method you use for delivery. Do you have a strategy in place?
• How many deliveries are made per day, per driver, and what would happen if this number could increase on a daily basis?
• How would a significant reduction in your fuel and maintenance costs affect your bottom line?

Let's talk about routing.

Your dispatcher or back office staff may be spending an excessive amount of time routing, re-routing, adding orders, and discovering the status of orders. How many times have you taken that phone call with the dreaded question from a customer wanting to know where his/her order is at?

Does this sound familiar to you?

• You thought it was on the truck, so you call the truck driver.
• You ask where he's at and when he plans on delivering the order.
• He calls you back letting you know the order is not on his truck.
• You call the warehouse, do they have the order?
• You're in luck, they found it, it's sitting on the floor of the warehouse.
• You call the driver back.
• You call  the customer back.
• You call the warehouse back.
• The customer needs this item now.
• You send someone out right away with the missed order or you bring the truck and driver back in to pick it up.

What has this just cost you?

Making the Change

Change isn't easy. But with the advances that technology has to offer, it's now possible to get control of these costs and turn them around into profits. The ability to incorporate a mobile application to your delivery processes will not only eliminate wasted staff time, fuel and maintenance, it will enable each of your drivers to increase the amount of deliveries they are able to make every day.

If you're tired of overpaying for pizza and everything it entails, check out the case study below to see how one TIMS Delivery user reduced its monthly costs: fleet vehicle usage went from 203 to 169, fuel consumption from $52,545 to $39,785, and reduced maintenance costs of $13,576.

Our TIMS customers are both large and small. One thing they have in common is savings — by implementing mobile products that streamline their operations.

Find out how this TIMS user saved millions of dollars in its first year of implementation using TIMS Delivery and Omnitracs^®.

Read the rest of this series to find out how you can achieve your own
bottom line savings by going mobile.

Part 2 - A Resolution to Your Delivery Problems  |  Part 3 - Turn Your Trucks Into Mobile Profit Centers