Logistics Tech Outlook

nVision Global
Detailed Visibility into Global Logistics

Globalization has paved the way for many organizations to unfurl their wings and glide into international markets. From capitalizing on global sourcing opportunities to taking advantage of private labelling strategies and taping into the surging businesses, having a global footprint is high priority for modern day companies. In this scenario, logistics providers are the ones connecting businesses globally, as they simplify the imperative task of carrying out shipments across borders and oceans. However, with new tech-trends, growing global requirements, and changing regulatory laws, today’s global logistics is in a constant flux. At this juncture, businesses that hope to plunge into new global markets must stay abreast with their industry leads, while also understanding local, regional, and continental politics, business practices, and consumer trends. “Many firms lack visibility into global rates, contracts, shipment activity, and approval activity in the supply chain process,” says Luther M. Brown, CEO, nVision Global.

Having more than two decades of expertise in delivering global technology based solutions, nVision Global is a towering figure in today’s logistics industry. “We are committed to working with Supply Chain visionaries to develop solutions beyond the expectations of our customers and their partners,” says Brown. The company examines the needs of customers and their supply chain providers, and collaboratively makes an effort to deliver powerful solutions that provide visibility and strong execution tools designed to address complex situations.

nVision Global’s broad base front line staff leverages visibility through management tools. The staff effectively responds to the constant change, volatility in demand, supply, capacity, and product. It ultimately drives improved customer service, operational performance, supply chain efficiencies and reduced transportation expenses. The company boasts of delivering facilities in four different continents with its superior technology, quality services, and comprehensive business intelligence applications. “We are not only the developer of our technology, we also use it every day in our companies to provide managed services,” cites Brown.

Fulfilling Modern Supply Chain Needs

The modern global supply chain requires an enterprise solution with a suite of tools that are powerful enough to perform on-demand dynamic global rating and routing queries to optimize cost and service and complex scenario modelling. Additionally it should deliver end-to-end connectivity with ERP systems, and integrate global procurement activities. nVision Global’s iMpactTMS is a robust closed loop solution with a unique Contract Management tool which provides the foundation for these capabilities in a streamlined workflow, which allows supply chain and logistics managers to have the control and visibility they need to optimize their investments.


iProcurement is designed to handle global tenders, regional or individual lanes, and individual shipments


nVision Global provides workflow-based approach to the entry and maintenance of various modes of Transportation Provider contractual agreements current as well as historical supplier agreements for comparative analysis through its centralized Global Contract Repository.

The Global Contract Repository is a critical engine that connects the customers’ supply chain stakeholders with the ability to perform on-demand Rating and Routing queries. It helps the customers to determine the least-cost Transportation Provider for a given lane or individual shipment activity, along with the best service options. “Coupled with the power of our comprehensive Modelling and Optimization solutions, Supply Chain and Logistics Managers can perform complex “What-If ” scenario modelling, benchmark analysis, and detailed comparative analysis of supplier contracts,” explains Brown. The iMpact modelling tool has over 300 pre-defined analytical queries designed to deliver comprehensive analysis of day to day shipment activity.

Luther Brown, CEO, nVision GlobalLuther Brown, CEO
Solutions Tailored to Make the Best Fit

nVision Global’s solutions are engineered with a core principle in mind to remain compliant with the clients’ existing frameworks. This process enables the company to receive client data for rating or analysis purposes, as well as detailed export capabilities to provide essential data, back to the client’s systems for downstream supporting processes. “Our team of experienced IT professionals recognizes that there is no such thing as a ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution and that very often a client’s business needs require a customized approach,” describes Brown. From professional project management, custom development, testing, and integration–nVision Global works with the client at every step of the way to create a solution tailored to the client’s needs. “Perhaps most importantly, Global Transportation Management Solutions must be able to communicate with existing client ERP systems to provide the most value and organizational benefit,” explains Brown.

nVision Global offers an online global solution— iProcurement—for transport and logistics management that provides a full scale freight tender platform for supporting all modes of transportation. “It is an online solution that can work in conjunction with our freight invoice database,” says Brown. “iProcurement solution is designed to handle global tenders, regional or individual lanes, and individual shipments,” he adds. Additionally, nVision provides an online event management module, iVisibility, which delivers a window to view current and historical shipment tracking information through Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) updates. “This solution is a real-time visibility portal and a part of our TMS Orders Module,” adds Brown. iVisibility provides actionable visibility into inbound and outbound transport activity, bills of ladings, purchase orders, tendered shipments as well as the shipments that are remaining in the warehouse. “Our Orders Module has features for purchase order validation, exception or expedited freight management with least cost routing, auctioning, and tendering,” he adds. It offers multiple communication methods to update the status of shipments electronically or via manual data entry.

The company offers prompt and accurate freight audit and payment solutions to a number of customers to help them maximize efficiencies. To illustrate one of nVision’s client stories, a customer approached nVision to efficiently address their concerns relating to lack of control for expedited freight shipping. nVision offered them tools that can help carry out a number of processes such as rating, routing, tendering, and visibility from creation of orders to final delivery. After effective utilization of tools, the customer significantly reduced their annual freight spend in a span of nine months.

The Road Ahead

nVision delivers a truly global solution in conjunction with its operations and development support centers around the globe. “This combination of global locations and the scalability and customizability of our solutions give us a competitive edge,” states Brown. Besides, the company believes in investing heavily on human resources in order to understand customers’ challenges and delivers the most befitting solutions to untangle the complexities, while developing capabilities.

Taking positive strides toward achieving its goals, nVision is looking forward to adding more locations to its current Asia and South America coverage. “As for technology, starting this month and over the next six months, we are going to be releasing several tools that our teams have been working on,” concludes Brown.

Deep Dive

Freight Audit For Transportation Spend Control

Freight billing challenges are not always immediately visible. More often, the problems are subtle. A duplicate charge slips through approval, a fuel surcharge is applied using the wrong rule, a carrier invoice does not match the contracted terms, or an accessorial charge remains unresolved until paying it seems easier than disputing it. For enterprises running across more countries, currencies, carrier systems and invoice formats, freight audit and payment has moved well beyond clerical review. It now sits close to the finance controls that protect margin and the transportation data that shapes sourcing decisions. The buying problem starts with invoice complexity. Base rates, fuel, accessorial, duties, detention charges and modespecific rules do not arrive in a clean format. They come through various transportation methods, documents and regional billing practices. A good freight audit partner should do much more than just identify billing errors. They should collect data, structure it in a meaningful way, validate it against the contract, and route exceptions to ensure that weak charges don’t turn into paid charges. Speed is important, but speed without controls only causes leakage. Secondly, fragmented data brings up another point of pressure. Freight movement records will be part of the transport process, contracts in procurement documents, invoices in the finance queue and approvals in emails. Finance teams need to know how to manage their payments and accruals. The logistics teams need lane-level detail and carrier performance, while the procurement teams need data audit in order to negotiate prices instead of complaints. The stronger provider helps transform freight bills into a reliable record of what happened, what was charged and where attention is needed. Global operations add another layer of complexity. Regional freight auditing requires more than just access to the software. Tax rules, local billing practices, language requirements and e-invoicing mandates can alter how invoices should be read and processed. A centralized platform without strong regional expertise can still leave teams handling exceptions manually. A more effective approach combines consistent audit rules with local knowledge, allowing multinational shippers to maintain a unified view of transportation spend while accounting for the unique requirements of each market. “nVision Global gives finance and logistics teams a clearer, more effective way to see, validate and manage transportation spend before errors become embedded in the cost base.” The same logic applies before and after payment. Audit catches errors, but transportation spend control improves when estimated shipment cost, provider selection and invoice validation stay connected. Pre-shipment rating can show the financial implication of a routing choice before it becomes an invoice. The post-audit analysis uncovers where the exceptions persist. The claims process may regain value after service problems occur. None of these aspects should function outside of the audit trail if the goal is cost control and not invoicing. For enterprises evaluating this space, nVision Global stands out as a practical and well-rounded choice. It brings together freight audit and payment with IMPACT TMS, nSure AI, nSight Analytics and Business Intelligence, nConnect, freight claims, procurement tools and managed services in a single connected ecosystem. The platform is particularly well suited for global shippers that need invoice capture, duplicate detection, contract validation, exception workflows, e-invoicing support and audited freight data working together seamlessly. What makes nVision Global compelling is not simply the technology it offers, but how well those capabilities align with real operational processes. It gives finance and logistics teams a clearer, more effective way to see, validate and manage transportation spend before errors become embedded in the cost base. ...Read more
Top 10 Transport Management Solution Companies 2015

Company
nVision Global

Management
Luther Brown, CEO

Description
Provider of global supply chain technology solutions, managed control tower services,operations intelligence analytics, invoice audit, payment, and information management solutions to help clients maximize efficiencies within their supply chain