Logistics and Transportation is one of the prime industries responsible for the balanced economic development of various parts of the world. Due to the massive demand and customer expectations, the logistics industry is constantly pressured to increase its efficiency and speed.
In an attempt to upscale its efficiency, trucking companies have adopted various digital devices to keep their drivers, warehouse agents and the overall workforce well connected.
Most logistics companies issue company-owned smartphones or tablets to their drivers to streamline their operations. But the more they rely on digital technologies, the more challenges it presents. Device maintenance, data security and greater IT support tickets for a large number of devices is a cumbersome tasks.
Mobile Device Management (MDM) solutions for logistics help company IT admins streamline the management of the massive amounts of devices provided to the drivers. It helps logistics businesses gain a single point of control for all their dispersed device fleets and manage diverse operations on them.
How Do MDM Solutions Help Logistics Companies Streamline Their Device Management?
With MDM solutions, your logistics businesses can reduce costs spent on implementing several different software for collaboration, tracking your inventory, securing your drivers’ devices, etc. You can use a single power-packed software that saves time and effort spent on managing multitudes of devices.
Following are the versatile features that MDM solutions offer:
1) Track your shipment in real-time
Logistics companies have several shipments traveling in various directions day in and day out. With MDM solutions, logistics companies can gain visibility of their moving shipments. You can track your drivers’ real-time locations using GPS-based location tracking. Some MDM solutions also allow company IT admins to configure geofences to create area-specific boundaries.
With the knowledge of the drivers’ locations, logistics companies can track the time taken between destinations, warn the drivers of any potential obstacles in the way and also suggest the best route to be taken.
2) Improve driver productivity
Providing smartphones and tablets to fleet drivers can be beneficial for logistics companies to stay connected with their drivers. However, it is important to ensure that the digital devices provided by the companies to their drivers are not exploited.
Logistics companies can leverage the kiosk lockdown capability of MDM solutions to lock their drivers’ devices into specific apps. You to restrict your drivers’ devices to a single-app kiosk mode, or a multi-app kiosk mode to ensure minimal distractions. This way, your drivers can use their digital devices for work, without accessing any gaming or entertainment apps on them.
The single-app iOS and Android kiosk mode allows you to turn your drivers’ smartphones or tablets into dedicated devices. You can lock the device in a single location tracking app, to obtain a dedicated GPS device, or you can lock the device in a single ELD app to obtain a dedicated Electonic Logging Device for your drivers.
You can help your drivers go paperless on their voyages by sharing digital documents with them. Drivers are required to carry multiple documents including bills of lading, packing lists, commercial invoices, import and export customs declarations, licenses, etc.
Your drivers can toss the bulky files and use the digital documents stored on their smartphones or tablets. Managers or members belonging to different teams can share documents of diverse formats over the air with the drivers with MDM-enabled content management.
4) Secure corporate data on drivers’ devices
Logistics is an inherently remote industry. Drivers are always on the move transporting goods and shipments from one place to another. When logistics companies decide to provide their drivers with mobile devices, they must take into consideration that these devices will store sensitive business information which is prone to leakage.
MDM solutions for logistics offer you a platform from which you can create multiple security configurations and push them on all your remote devices with a few simple steps.
Enforcing passcode policies, configuring VPNs and firewalls, encrypting sensitive data and pushing data loss prevention settings are some of the security features that MDM solutions help you configure. You can also remotely lock your drivers’ devices and wipe the corporate data off if your drivers’ devices are ever lost or stolen.
5) Push business apps and tools on drivers’ devices
The massive use of mobile devices in the transportation and logistics industry depends majorly on the use of mobile apps of various kinds. Team communication tools, GPS apps, file viewing apps and much more. IT admins of logistics companies can provision their drivers’ devices in bulk with the MDM software.
You can push a plethora of public or private apps on your Android or iOS devices remotely. This helps logistics companies save a lot of time that is otherwise spent on manually configuring devices.
6) Prioritize on-road safety
Simply providing your drivers with mobile devices is not enough, ensuring your drivers’ on-road safety is crucial. Mobile devices, especially the ones that have several mobile apps on them can be a huge source of distraction for drivers. Most road accidents happen due to people being distracted by their smartphones while driving.
To help logistics businesses ensure driver safety, some modern-day MDM solutions like Scalefusion offer Speed-based Locking capabilities.
You can configure a safe speed range on your driver’s devices using the MDM dashboard. If your drivers surpass this speed limit, certain apps on their smart devices are automatically disabled so that the driver no longer can be distracted by his smartphone while driving.
7) Offer remote support
If your fleet drivers face technical issues on their smart devices in the middle of the journey, it can lead to a lot of time wasted causing delayed deliveries and degraded customer experience.
You can tackle this by enabling your IT admins to reach out to your drivers instantly and offer remote support via the MDM console.
MDM solutions offer extensive remote troubleshooting features such as remote control, remote screencast, VoIP calls, screenshots and screen recordings and much more to resolve errors quickly.
Closing Lines
Logistics is a crucial part of a successful supply chain. Businesses can empower their fleet drivers with mobile devices confidently as long as they have the right tools to manage their dispersed device fleets.
Several logistics companies around the world have identified MDM solutions as the ideal tool to streamline their corporate-owned device management. If you are on the fence about opting for an MDM solution for your logistics business, it is time you do.
