Brokers typically introduce two parties in the pursuit of negotiating a deal, brokers add little value other than helping to procure cheaper pricing. This can be more than suitable depending on what your goals are, but keep in mind cheaper isn’t necessarily the best option for a complete business specific solution. A good Freight Manager will take the time to fully understand a business’s needs and goals and will present a solution that will make genuine improvements. Further to that they will provide ongoing customer service, account management, a multi carrier despatching program, fully audited invoicing, customised reporting and provide ongoing help, guidance and assistance.

The bigger and more complex a business gets the likelihood of needing to engage the services of a Freight Management company increases. Due to the size and geography of Australia, the more branches or despatch locations that you have along with different receiver locations can often lead to the need to use a variety of carriers and services types. Quiet simply this is inefficient. You may be on great pricing from your carriers but at what cost internally? How many carriers do you need to deal with for enquiries, how many invoices and credit teams do you need to deal with weekly, how do you consign and despatch orders, how do you track them? By outsourcing your freight and logistics to a good Freight Management company like Hydra Logistics can help you to improve on all the above. We will help to drive internal efficiencies allowing you for quicker task completion, improved freight visibility, quicker response times and personalised service. We can help free up your internal resources to allow them to concentrate on your core business activities. The question is why wouldn’t you use a Freight Management company?

This isn’t always the case, however as a commercial client to carriers not only do we spend large sums of money with them we are also a low cost to serve client. We handle all the sales and account management, IT functions and field the majority of the day to day enquiries. This means they have a lower resource requirement to serve us and hence commercial rates. We also understand the need to use the right carriers for the freight profile, service and destinations. We perform full invoice audits on your incumbent carriers, that big national carton or bulk carrier you are using may have you on great pricing into capital cities but may be stinging you on regional or return deliveries, our market

We help clients to consolidate their freight via one despatching program, that allows quoting, consigning, tracking and communication. We provide one central customer service team for all enquiries, we provide a weekly, fully audited invoice for all carrier transactions along with a monthly report outlining such areas as receiver and carrier spend, branch to branch transfers and DIFOT reports. Quite simply we help to improve your processes and help to free up internal resources which can concentrate on core business activities. Combine this with better pricing and the value we add is clear.

Our typical process is to meet with any potential clients to get an understanding of their current set up, carriers and services used, the issues faced and what the client is looking to achieve. The next stage is for the client to supply us with at least a month’s worth of full carrier invoicing and pricing so we can compare this to the current market offerings and pricing and look to procure a more competitive and suitable package. Goals may be cheaper pricing, a consolidated solution, technological advancements, better service or a combination of multiple solutions. In conjunction we like to work with any potential client in performing a Time in Motion study to get a clearer picture on the internal resources used, the associated resource cost and what the resource use and cost would be under a Hydra Logistics solution. Once complete we will go through our analysis, findings and recommendations with you. This is all at no cost to you, we are highly confident that we can procure a beneficial solution.

There are a number of factors which can affect the time frame of an implementation. The number of branches and carriers required are a major factor along with what the client’s requirements are. The client may want an all-in start or a staggered start with certain branches/carriers coming online in stages. Usually it is a 1-2 month process.

No, Hydra Logistics will receive carrier invoices via accounts that we set up, we will provide one weekly invoice, which we validate against the consignment information we receive from our despatch program. This allows us to provide accurate, validated charges. Saving your accounts department valuable time in not having to raise credit claims with carriers.

We will work with both you and the carrier to devise a solution, if this doesn’t eventualise then we can replace the carrier with an alternative.

No, this simply isn’t possible. There will always be someone who will do it cheaper. Our business partnerships are about providing a complete freight solution in which a major element is highly competitive pricing, typically we will be more cost effective on 90% of the work.