With many logistics companies moving to large-scale remote working, accessing hard copy documents and records in the office is no longer an option. Graeme Millar, CargoWise Global Customer Services Manager, explains the power of moving to a paperless supply chain. 

Speed has always been a priority for logistics companies. You need to have access to your documents at a moment’s notice, from bills of lading to manifests and cargo loads, purchase orders, invoices and much more.

In the face of coronavirus lockdowns, many logistics companies who had resisted moving to a paperless supply chain are seeing their operations slow down significantly – and no business can afford that.

If you’re looking to minimise potential delays or disruptions to your operations, a digital documentation solution is critical. Fortunately, moving quickly to a paperless environment can be easier and quicker than you think.

With CargoWise’s cloud-based, digital documentation solution, eDocs, you can automate and optimise your operations by eliminating hard to manage paperwork and processes.

Quickly access your securely stored documents in any file type – including email files, audio clips, images and video files – where and when they’re needed.

Using eDocs to swiftly move to a paperless supply chain helps you:

Speed up processes: regardless of your location around the world, instantly retrieve what you need to know about any shipment or order, reducing your time spent managing, filing, searching, updating and sharing manual documentation.

Manage risks: reduce the time spent handling inaccessible documentation required by receipting agents, customs and other parties, as well as costs associated with manual data entry and data duplication.

Improve visibility: empower your forwarding parties with immediate visibility into the logistics of each shipment, as well as global visibility and access to important documents and files, regardless of where your people are based.

Drive control: physical documents are difficult to manage, track, version and protect. eDocs keeps all your information in a single, secure location, with flexible visibility controls based on a company, branch or department so only approved individuals or teams can access certain files.

Better utilise resources: add simple workflow functionality to automate a variety of manual documentation processes and provide different employees with simultaneous access to records. For example, you can reduce your operators’ workload by setting up delivery schedules to automatically send out attached documents at specific times.

Source: https://cargowise.com/news/why-going-paperless-is-critical-to-navigating-supply-chain-disruption/