With the huge role that Salesforce products now play in the business world, it’s only natural that companies aim to build holistic ecosystems where Salesforce is the cornerstone, with everything else integrated around it. In many cases, the plethora of apps and addons on AppExchange allow organizations to leverage digital infrastructures that are almost completely based on Salesforce. However, with more specialized solutions like TMS (transportation management systems), this is not always reasonable. After all, Salesforce does not offer an out-of-the-box TMS that would completely match everyone’s needs – and the types of businesses that use transportation management software are diverse, often needing custom or niche solutions that would then integrate seamlessly with SF products. Here, we briefly explore the main considerations and benefits of using Salesforce in integration with TMS.
“Marrying” Salesforce with Transportation Management Systems
So who are the organizations that use both Salesforce products and a TMS? According to statistics, about 29.2% of SF users are in professional services, 11.9% are manufacturers, and 8.5% in retail. There are smaller numbers in different aspects of supply chain management, including logistics, that, if added together, will also account for a considerable proportion. Now, professional services do not always require a full-fledged transportation management system, so a large amount of these are okay using Salesforce Field Service (previously known as Lightning). The rest, including larger retailers, manufacturers, and logistics, are the types we’re talking about here.
Apart from (obviously) Salesforce CRM itself, the two most used products are Service Cloud and Sales Cloud. The former captured 44.9% of the service market in 2023, while the latter (accounting for 38.3% of the market share) is often the go-to tool in B2B sales. The main idea of integrating TMS on the operational side and SF on the customer-facing side is to break silos between departments and provide a better level of visibility.
For example, Sales Cloud users might need information that is typically contained within the “operations” departments, such as transportation management. Even more crucially, Service Cloud, since it’s intended to offer real-time support, is frequently integrated with TMS for delivery tracking and other data.
This is not only important to be able to tell the customer when their shipment will actually arrive, but very beneficial strategically: a business always needs to know what “bills” written by marketing and sales they can or can’t “pay”, not to mention things like carrier tendering and so on.
The main consideration: preserving what Salesforce excels at
A key consideration here is to think of why SF users choose it over, say, Oracle in the first place – and preserve that competitive edge when dealing with integrations. That factor is customer centricity. Salesforce’s strong side is exactly that: organizing data flows and processes around the customer and prioritizing (read: enabling) personalized experiences. Accordingly, most of the immediate benefits of TMS-Salesforce integration are linked to this underlying ambition, and we’ll see it in practice right now.
Benefits of Integrating TMS with Salesforce
#1 Seamless data exchange between sales/support and transportation
The most obvious benefit is perhaps enabling the flow of data between sales and logistics teams. Breaking silos between departments has long been a priority: in a 2021 survey, 94% of companies agreed that siloed data was detrimental for efficient decision making. Now, with TMS being integrated with SF, sales and customer service can leverage the same information that logistics departments do, including the availability of carriers at a given moment, status of orders, and more. On average, an integration between CRMa nd logistics results in about 35% higher operational efficiency because there’s a single source of truth for data.
#2 Live shipment status tracking
One of the more particular cases is being able to track shipment status in real time. This is most obviously important for B2C companies, as up to 96% of customers expect brands to proactively inform them where (at what stage) their expected shipment is. This directly translates into customer service calls, and with TMS-Salesforce Service Cloud integrations, their amount can be reduced by 10-30%.
#3 Order management and B2B sales
Especially for larger-scale B2B sales, integrating the TMS with Salesforce Sales Cloud can be a good idea: when the sales agent can directly view the availability of carriers, the transportation rates and similar information, they can provide more accurate estimated arrival times, fostering an atmosphere of trust, with, on average, a 15% increase in repeat business. At the same time, CRM and TMS integrations are known to improve order management accuracy and reduce order processing times.
#4 Handling delays and exceptions
The freer flow of data between Salesforce and TMS is also a factor that makes delays and expectations handling easier. For example, the resulting ecosystem can be made to alert to delays instantly, while automated exception handling allows for around 26% fewer shipping delays.
#5 Automation possibilities (shipping labels, cost calculation, etc.)
Another benefit of Salesforce-TMS integration is that you can automate more processes. The list includes things like generating shipping labels, calculating costs for shipment, and managing the process of selecting the carrier for each shipment (we’ve hinted at that under #3). As an example of such routine, when a placed order hits SF, the system can generate shipping labels based on carrier choice, while calculating how much it will cost.
Approaches to transportation management system use with Salesforce
There are two main approaches to ensuring a Salesforce-TMS integration: one is sticking to an out-of-the box system, and another, to develop a custom one and have it integrated with Salesforce Service Cloud (or Sales Cloud, or Field Service). Of course, there’s also the question of what data from TMS will be displayed in the Salesforce app, and what data from SF will be displayed in the TMS.
Of the first category (that is, the out-of-the-box transportation management systems that integrate with Salesforce), there are about a dozen options, all of them more or less tailored to their niches. These include MercuryGate, Kuebix, FreightPOP, and more, and boast predefined features like shipment tracking, carrier management, and billing integration, while connecting to Salesforce via MuleSoft or native AppExchange apps. What’s enticing is, if you’re okay with their constraints, you can implement them quite fast and cost-effectively, with menial customization work required. This is the privilege for those companies whose business models venture into the “red oceans” of the market.
For the “blue ocean” explorers, though, a custom TMS is still the optimal choice. Unlike out-of-the-box solutions, which may require businesses to adjust their workflows to fit standard features, a custom TMS can be built to support specialized operations such as complex multimodal shipments, international freight management, and unique billing structures.
However, going with custom TMS is not a curse – it’s here where you can create deeper, more tailored integrations with Salesforce products like Service Cloud, as well as with ERP, accounting, and WMS. Considering how WMS (warehouse management systems) and TMS are often very closely interconnected, and require their own integration capacities, once you introduce a corporate know-how for operations, this becomes the perfect solution for ensuring the comfortable level of control. You can contact Lionwood for a consultation on custom TMS development and integration at any time.
