How to Pick a Memphis or Atlanta Warehousing Company (Part 1 of 5)
With freight volumes fluctuating more than ever and retailers needing to make vital inventory decisions, warehousing has become a vital component to manage in your supply chain. There are 3 factors which need to be considered when selecting your warehouse provider. The team with the right experience, location and value will always be the right choice for you. Over the next few weeks, we will dive into each of these factors in our (soon to be downloadable) in-depth guide.
Experience
An experienced warehousing company with a seasoned team is the primary requirement for our logistics customers. The company’s longevity in warehousing is also of vital concern. You also need to assess the knowledge and experience of the warehousing team. When it comes to experience the tenure of key operations team members with current warehousing companies makes a difference. So there you have the company’s knowledge, experience, and tenure of key warehousing employees all contributing to a recipe for customer success.
Location
Location of a warehouse is very important to consider when a retailer, shipper or logistics provider is choosing how to distribute freight and make transportation decisions. When you are choosing a location, you must consider the distance to your major suppliers and customers. Most international companies need a location that will have access to major port operations for international shipments via air or ocean. Also the location’s business climate, traffic and major interstate corridors may determine if a location is viable or not. When you start looking for the right location, you start to understand that multiple factors need evaluating in order to pick a smart location.
Value
Most customers start with pricing and they do not make the best value based decision. We use the term value because we see that our customers are more successful when they build a value-based relationship. This value is based on a combination of price and service levels. Pricing with excellent service levels is best evaluated with strong Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs). When service providers better understand expectations, a good warehousing company will build its operations to provide the level of service needed to get the job done with excellence.
Warehousing in Brief
So there we have a brief overview of these key parts of how to go about picking a warehousing company. We have chosen 3 key elements related to experience, location and value to explore over the next few weeks. Our plan is to take each key element in the decision-making process and dive into how we leverage them to better serve our customers’ warehousing needs in the Memphis and Atlanta areas. Please keep an eye on our blog and newsletters as we release 4 more posts in this 5 part series. Our next post in this series will be on the location of the warehousing company. Please comment below or contact us here if we can help with anything. Until next week, stay safe and keep on trucking.