With the ever-changing business environment LSPs are signing more complex contracts with variations in services, pricing and relations. This report explores how technology enables integration between operations and financial management to provide visibility and profitability throughout the organization in order to stay ahead of the competition and win more business. Some of the key findings include:

Poor control over profitability due to the changing business environment

The logistics environment is changing rapidly, which provides more difficulties for LSPs in their services, operations, and financial handling. The research revealed that 93% of LSPs are unable to support the changing relationships with shippers and partners in terms of complex contracts.

Lack of financial integration with operations and HR leads to potential pitfalls

The research revealed that 93% of LSPs have problems estimating the ROI on contracts,

resulting in poor projection of profit margins. The high employee turnover creates security loopholes due to non-specific authorization, and is a major concern.

No back-office automation to support effective SCM planning and execution

The survey revealed that 80% of LSPs have not integrated their back-office functions with their logistics operations, leading to inefficient planning and execution. LSPs' key success factors are mainly based on the successful 'planning of the supply chain activities' and 'execution of the shipment transportation and warehousing'.

Integrated back-office automation can yield high returns

Back-office automation with integration across functional areas and technologies can yield significant benefits - both towards internal focus within operations, services, HR and financial accounting, and external focus on shippers and partners.

Click here to download this white paper and learn more about how technology enables visibility and profitability throughout your organization.

About SAP

SAP for Logistics Service Providers is a set of leading-edge solutions that help logistics service providers, such as third-party providers, lead logistics providers, forwarding companies, and carriers - companies like yours - gain enterprise wide visibility, reduce costs, and win new business. With SAP for Logistics Service Providers, you can flexibly integrate with your customers' and partners' IT systems, allowing you to share a common system landscape and language. Plus, the solutions empower you to provide industry-specific services in multiple industries, so you can adapt quickly to customer needs, drive innovation in your key business processes, contain costs, and reduce risk. And you can do it all regardless of the size of your company.

For more informationEmail: [email protected]: www.sap.com/industries/logisticservices/index.epx