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Focus: Transportation Management

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From SCDigest's On-Target E-Magazine

Jan. 18, 2011

Logistics News: Supply Chain Digest Announces Availability of Parcel Rate Analysis Tool for 2011

By Product of Highly Successful Townhall Meeting on UPS and FedEx Rate Hikes, Shippers Can gain Better Understanding of True Impact on their Business

SCDigest Says:

Based on the analysis, shippers can better inform their carrier and negotiations strategies..

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In December, SCDigest held a highly successful on-line "Townhall Meeting" on the UPS and FedEx 2011 rate hikes, featuring parcel industry executive and now consultant Jerry Hempstead.

That event was attended by several hundred people for the live broadcast, and hundreds more for the on-demand version of the event. The on-demand version can be replayed here: Townhall Meeting: Understanding and Managing the 2011 UPS and FedEx Rate Hikes.

As part of the event, Hempstead is making available exclusively to SCDigest readers the Parcel Rate Analyzer 2011, a spreadsheet based tool that they can use to better estimate what the true impact of the rate changes will be on their parcel shipping costs for 2011.

"Most of the news was around the "average rate hikes, but that really tells you very little," Hempstead says. "You need to understand what it really means to your operation and book of business. Nobody is "average" in the sense that the average rate hikes numbers might lead you to you believe."

He notes, for example, how the change in the dimensional weight factors and changes to accessorial charges can easily lead to double digit hikes in parcel shipping costs in 2011 for many logistics operations.

A snapshot of the opening page of the Parcel Rate Tool is shown below. It shows the wealth of tools that are available for parcel shippers within this one spreadsheet.

Opening Menu of Parcel Rate Analyzer 2011

(Transportation Management Article Continued Below)

CATEGORY SPONSOR: SOFTEON

As also shown below, the tool has rates for a number of years for not only UPS and FedEx, but also DHL and the USPS. Shippers can apply discount factors, and manipulate a number of other factors as well.

Key to this Powerful Tool is Bringing in Actual Shipping Data for Analysis

The real key to successful use of the tool is for shippers to import actual shipment history and use it to estimate the 2011 rate change impact, and/or to compare carriers for a given shipment profile.

"If you receive electronic invoices or can obtain your invoice data electronically (or get from your national account rep your activity detail in an electronic spreadsheet) you can do a pivot table and sort your unique book of business by service level, by zone , by weight and past the result into this tool to do the cost out extension," Hempstead says.

Based on the analysis, shippers can better inform their carrier and negotiations strategies.

"Remember, everything can be negotiated," Hempstead said during the Townhall meeting, noting examples of cost areas that are often negotiated that many shippers may not know is possible.

The Parcel Rate Analyzer 2011 is available at no charge to SCDigest subscribers. It comes as a downloadable zip file (2 megabytes) that contains a single spreadsheet. The opening screen contains an instructions page tag near the bottom.

Note: Users must "Enable Macros" as indicated on the opening page for the tool to work correctly.

It can be downloaded here: Parcel Rate Analyzer 2011.

Questions on using the Parcel Rate Analyzer 2011 can be sent using the Feedback button below.

Do you try the Parcel Rate Analyzer? How do you like it? How can it be improved? Let us know your thoughts at the Feedback button below.

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