Supply chain managers and corporate governance boards of large transnational shipping companies would be hard-pressed to identify just one nightmare scenario that keeps them up late into the night.
Many might worry about not meeting the demands of yet another holiday season, uneven performance as reflected on the corporate bottom-line, or finding themselves, or their company, operating in a potentially controversial industry.
What many fail to consider, however, is the ultimate nightmare scenario, or the one that catches them off-guard and risks not only their reputation in the near-term, but also their ability to ever recover future goodwill or business so as to remain solvent.
Case in point? The death of some 39 persons smuggled from China and elsewhere into the United Kingdom by way of Bulgaria, France, Belgium, and Ireland.
While GPS data regarding the refrigerated container’s route and registration is being made known to the public, information surrounding the motives of the individuals involved and the corporate lapses in governing these personnel remains a mystery.
Sadly, and despite such a media frenzy at present, such issues are likely to recur in the logistics space well into the future unless carriers and transportation specialists make a more concerted effort in not only monitoring movement, but making sense of their data and policing against behaviours not in accordance with their founding principles.
While Hanhaa cannot prevent internal misses in the hiring process, they can provide insights through precision tracking and real-time alerts that help managers reach out to drivers on their mobiles when stops at border crossings or areas known for migrant trafficking deviate from previously agreed-upon manifests.
By taking just a few steps toward partnering with Hanhaa and implementing hardware and software solutions that are turnkey in nature, logistics leaders and couriers are more likely to avoid their own nightmarish scenario as well as relay a goodwill news story toward improving their own bottom line.
Here’s how:
Precision in tracking:
As mentioned, the tangled web of companies involved in the latest loss of human life were using GPS trackers, but not effectively.
This is to say that data and information are two entirely different concepts, but two which can be easily understood when data analysts partner not only with their upstream and downstream counterparts based in ports, harbours, border crossings, or warehouses, but also with their managers or corporate leaders.
Hanhaa’s ParceLive service can do just that by not only amalgamating data streams as disparate as location, tilt orientation, and drastic temperature changes, but also by seamlessly integrating into existing hardware and software at legacy companies.
In other words, and regardless of whether supply chain managers swear by Microsoft Excel or Oracle, ParceLive can provide immediate insight into shipment breaches that are relayed in real-time to monitors back at headquarters no matter the number of time zones between their shipment and their operational nodes.
Protecting the bottom-line and human dignity:
All of these data streams are great in real-time, especially when paired with Hanhaa’s Mobile Network, or Hanhaa XG, which allows monitors and tracking personnel to reach out to third-party owners and operators should a shipment come under suspicion.
Not only does this allow the parent company to resolve any issues at the lowest level, but is also affords leaders the opportunity to prevent human trafficking and other forms of smuggling from causing them legal duress later on.
This may seem like a hot-button issue at the moment, but history suggests that persons will continue to try to profit from moving individuals desperate for a new lease on life.
Consider, then, that in 2012 some 2.5M persons were estimated to have been the victims of human trafficking with the industry of human smuggling generating some $32B per year in profits.
What’s more, no country is ‘safe’ from the risk of incurring people passing through its borders unknown or undetected with nearly 50 percent of those smuggled being children from Central Asia into Europe.
Partnering beyond the supply pipeline:
These statistics should be alarming not only to the supply chain manager or small-town owner and leaser of lorries and ferries, but also corporate leaders.
The opportunity now exists, however, to combat human trafficking by merely making more robust those operational capabilities most firms already employ.
This is to say that with the help of Hanhaa’s ability to create a secure network of partners willing to take on the shared fight in reducing human trafficking and smuggling, many firms can work with their suppliers, employees, and customers to ensure compliance while validating external hiring processes in the global trucking industry.
What’s more, companies can be more proactive and share their findings and steps toward reducing this particular external threat by partnering with organizations beyond the logistics industry such as Unseen, Interpol, and others toward improving not only their own circumstances, but those who could potentially find themselves victims of a nefarious driver.
Conclusion:
It should not take the loss of human life in order to call attention to the plight of millions living under austere conditions in countries as seemingly advanced, and increasingly progressive, as China, Bulgaria, and, yes, even France, Belgium, and the United Kingdom.
This is all to say that logistics companies, transportation staffing agencies, and independent owners and operators looking to marry supply with demand should not wait until the next humanitarian crisis before reviewing their current processes.
Instead, each of these agencies should take action on a regular or recurring basis so as to ensure that their tracking software and hardware are not only precise, but also focused on protecting individuals through strong partnerships built on transparency across mission statements, shared corporate visions, and data collection practices.
Hanhaa’s suite of products can certainly offer the means in which to achieve these higher-order ends, but cannot solve the world’s increasingly dire human smuggling and trafficking problem alone.
Thus, it is important that each and every loggie within this space take serious their current operations and look to seal any gaps in their operations by increasing their tracking and strengthening their partnerships.
Which begs the question:
Why not start by implementing ParceLive trackers and driving goodwill beyond the four walls of a single warehouse and driving change throughout the world one route at a time?
