nVision Global: Transforming the Global Supply Chain

Luther M. Brown, CEO

The logistics industry is undergoing a massive transformation in the wake of changing global freight conditions, increasing transport volumes, and evolving markets across borders and oceans. However, rising transportation costs and lack of visibility have been major challenges to many companies􀇱 bottom line. Additionally, the continuous manual interventions to handle logistics activities and insufficient data related to shipment and contract rates often lead to poor decisions. There is an urgent need to invest in robust logistics solution that provide real-time visibility, ensure carrier compliance, drive efficiency and return a positive ROI. nVision Global, a leader in supply chain and logistics solutions, has over 25 years of experience in the services and technology industry. In this interview with CIO Applications, Luther M. Brown, CEO and David Maddox, SVP Sales Supply Chain, explain how their solutions are revolutionizing the global supply chain management landscape.

Could you give us a synopsis of nVision Global’s history and the value the company brings to its clients?

Founded in 1992, nVision Global has become a global leader in providing configurable supply chain solutions and services, empowering global companies with the ability to optimize their supply chain operations, while gaining access to critical shipment and invoice data. Offering a complete suite of logistics solutions and tools, we cater to every need of our customers ranging from procuring new contracted rates to transportation technology, executing freight audit and payments, freight claims management to advanced data analytics and business intelligence.

What are some of the challenges that organizations face in the supply chain management space? How do your solutions and services help to overcome these impediments?

Increasing transportation costs, lack of real-time visibility to shipment activity, no way to organize or manage negotiated transportation provider tariffs, no way to compare negotiated rates against spot quotes, and lack of access to critical shipment data are all hot issues in the supply chain landscape. The selection of and partnering with the right transportation provider and improving the overall cost element is critical. Customers are demanding these data insights to help them control and manage all cost variables through effective service selections, process optimization, and consolidation of shipments. Our proactive approach saves clients millions of dollars a year by giving them visibility into historical data and providing access to real-time data points allowing them to make critical decisions based on facts instead of instinct.

We provide a wide array of products and services, with our transportation technology iMpact TMS. This modular application performs various functions including system integration with customers, vendors and transportation providers, purchase order integration, shipment creation and order management, spot quotes, contract management, freight audit and payment and shipment claims just to name a few. Additionally, nVision Global’s shipment visibility module, iVisibility, delivers a window to view current and historical shipment tracking information through Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) updates with your transportation providers. Our iProcurement tool on the other hand, provides an online portal to procure new rates for your shipping lanes, utilizing industry leading analytical solutions that allow users to determine the best provider or providers for any given lane, globally.

No more sending spreadsheets through email and then trying to combine everything into a single spreadsheet and spending days trying to filter through the results.

Our technology is a highly configurable solution that enables our customers to choose what modules and capabilities they want to deploy

What are the key differentiating factors which set your company apart from the competitors?

Our customers often tell us our global footprint was key to their selection of our company. Unlike many of our competitors, nVision Global has offices in 6 countries and associates based around the globe in more than a dozen countries. Our offices are positioned around the world and that affords our customers regional, many times local, but always prompt customer support.

Our technology is a highly configurable solution that enables clients to choose the modules and capabilities they want to deploy. Our iMpact TMS, a multi-modal solution, allows users to define rules pertaining to shipment execution and is the only multi-level, expedited freight shipment approval application in the industry. In addition, it provides customers with 24x7 visibility into all negotiated and spot quote/auction rates.

Realizing the importance of information for actionable decision-making, we have introduced a state-of-the-art business analytics solution that analyzes millions of rows of data in seconds. The new BI tool is designed and developed based on the latest generation/platform for business intelligence. First generation tools were developed around visuals and not speed of delivery of data. Newer technology is focused on providing data to the user faster and with greater flexibility to manipulate the information to garner true business intelligence. Our new iFocus 2 platform, which we released in January of this year, is drastically more robust than our previous versions of business intelligence software. Our production environment testing continues to validate “Users” are retrieving as many as 40 million records in as little as 4-5 seconds! The second generation tool incorporates point, click and search capabilities inside user customizable workbooks, with limitless pivot and drill-down capabilities. Our iFocus 2 application will all the spreadsheets previously utilized by users with a dynamic user experience that provides constantly up-to-date actionable information. The data is easily exportable and shareable with colleagues directly from the tool itself. This all-in-one analytics platform is designed to support daily decision making across the many business units and decision makers within the global supply chain team.

Our teams continue to work with our database engineers and others experienced with data to improve the value of the data that is used for analytical purposes. Typically customers want you to cleanse and normalize names of shippers and consignees, which is always helpful for reporting presentation purposes. The true enhanced value comes from a more enriched data normalization process that looks at critical fields which should be used for advanced analytics and key performance indicators such as: accessorials, taxes, service types, services levels, equipment types, port codes and types, modes, cargo types, shipping methods, etc. The end result is enriched data for advanced spend and cash management analytics.

Finally, our global contract management tool and our rate engine supports over 18,000 global transportation providers, executing over 100 million annual transactions with spend in excess of $5.5 billion.

Could you share with us a case study that highlights your proposition?

We have a client who only used expedited air as a means of transportation for their goods. Many of these goods could have been placed on rail or ocean modes of transport, but because expedited air had always been used, no one ever thought to investigate a lower cost option. Unfortunately, these expedited costs were only visible to logistics management after the shipment had been made, typically identified in the freight invoice audit process. So, our customer needed greater visibility to their shipments and it needed to be much earlier in the process. They needed a way to review and approve these shipment requests prior to their actual movement. Leveraging nVision Global’s iMpact TMS, the client has saved over €30 million to date as a result of real-time visibility and a comprehensive approval process, allowing them to effectively manage their expedited freight expenditures. Additionally, they have gained improved transportation planning, optimization capabilities, increased accuracy, and better work-flow management.

Where do you see nVision Global heading to in the near future?

We will continue to invest in our technology, and associates while educating customers about our end-to-end solutions. We have collaborated with industry experts who help us remain focused on our vision and mission. We will continue to be an ambassador for our industry and company alike by investing our resources into untapped markets globally.