The supply chains of today are under a lot more pressure than their predecessors. As new technologies emerge and operations get shipments out quicker every year, logistics operations have an ever-rising standard of service that they must strive to achieve if they want to keep growing.

Because of this, quality control is becoming more vital than ever before. To make sure that this increase in demand and in speed doesn’t lead to a decline in quality, supply chains must become more transparent with their partners as well as their customers.

Your partners want to be certain that they are doing business with someone who they can trust, isn’t cutting corners and is headed in the right direction overall.

Meanwhile, your customers want to be kept in the loop on their shipments.

By putting good transparency practices in place, you show your partners and customers that you are trustworthy and easy to work with, which is only going to serve the growth of your business year after year.

Businesses are easy to build… trust is not.

Transparency Builds Partnerships

The logistics industry is notorious for being one in which you sort of need to have partnerships with other people in order to reach the top of the proverbial food chain. It is these very partnerships that can make or break an entire supply chain.

Transparency is a crucial element that you must put into practice in your daily operations if you wish to build thriving, these long-term partnerships. There are numerous roles within any given supply chain and they all must be visible and communicate openly.

This high level of visibility at every level of the supply chain allows partners to more effectively work together and scale their business as everyone knows what the others are doing. Ideally, the drivers should be able to give status updates regarding inbound deliveries to the logistics manager who can then relay this information to his receiving crew and handlers, inventory managers, and so on. All of this is done in an effort to streamline and keep operations moving as quickly as possible.

With well-managed transparency practices in place, all parties can work together on improving these processes and increasing operational efficiency from multiple angles to insure that everyone is on the same page… and more importantly, satisfied.

Furthermore, transparency is about building trust. When your partners know that they can rely on you without thinking twice about it, they are more likely to continue doing business with you.

Transparency Directly Impacts Your Customers… And Therefore, Your Success

As I mentioned earlier, it isn’t just your partners who need you to be transparent with them.

While your operations may not even be possible without the skills that your partners bring to the table, it is your customers who are the lifeblood of your business. Keeping them happy and updated on the status of their orders should be your number one priority.

Allowing your customers a look at the entire process and the journey that their products take before arriving gives them a sense of involvement in it. They aren’t just being told that it is on the way, they can actually watch it move along a specific path.

With this information, your customers can see where their products are coming from, how long it sits in one place, and finally how it made its way to their front door.

Ultimately, you are giving your customers not only a sense of involvement and a level of control, but you are giving them the most important thing in the world; peace of mind.

Final Thoughts

Transparency is a crucial factor in the logistics industry.

Too little emphasis is placed on transparency practices can easily result in a swift and severe decline in both business and reputation. This is still, unfortunately, a concept that quite a few supply chains have failed to grasp.

We are in an industry that is making massive use of emerging technologies and incorporating more innovative fulfillment methods with every passing year. And while that is certainly a great thing to watch unfold, we need to be mindful of the underlying factor that truly powers it all; transparency and the trust it builds.