Answer to an age-old query: ‘Where’s my order?’

When customers call Stewart Foodservice Inc. to check on their day’s deliveries, the last thing they’ll get is that old response, “It’s on the truck and that’s all we know.” In fact, whoever answers the call can say exactly where that shipment is, what time it will arrive and whether there were any delays along the way.

The Barrie, Ont., company is one of a number of Canadian small business operations that have turned to on-demand, Web-enabled services to track their delivery vehicles in the field.

One would think that, thanks to GPS locators and advanced software applications, it would be easy for any company to track its deliveries. But the software and IT support needed to do this kind of job are too complicated and expensive for the average small business.

Stewart’s finance director, Dennis Hrytzak, says that when it comes to software, “there is nothing economical out there” for any company with fewer than 25 trucks. “And what is out there was way too much for what we need because they require a lot of set-up and training.”

That’s why Stewart, which has 75 employees, had to do its daily delivery scheduling manually until four years ago. “The biggest problem we had with that was that whenever anyone called to ask ‘Where’s my order?’ we had no way of telling them,” Mr. Hrytzak says.

Now, for about $1,000 a month, Stewart has online access to enterprise level, real-time route tracking and planning services from Descartes Systems Group Inc., based in Waterloo, Ont.

“We can use it to plan our daily routes, watch what’s happening to our trucks and drivers in real time, and quickly adjust [delivery schedules] if any changes happen along the way,” Mr. Hrytzak explains.

Stewart can also stay on top of changes or delays and adjust schedules accordingly using data from the GPS locators on drivers’ phones.

The fact that it’s a pay-as-you-go service is “perfect,” Mr. Hrytzak adds. “Whenever we expand our fleet, we just have to add it with the other dispatch information in the morning and it’s taken care of. We just pay for what we need.” Warren Shiau, lead analyst for IT research at the Strategic Counsel in Toronto, notes that while the outsourcing of applications is not new, it is only in the past year or so that enterprise-level vendors have been configuring applications for use by smaller organizations.

“Higher-end enterprise applications are now moving down so they can be truly applicable for the smaller-size business,” Mr. Shiau says.

Not all enterprise-level applications are a good fit for the small business owner, however, because some can be difficult to learn and manage. For example, high-end financial software applications are not as viable in a SaaS (software as a service) model because “the processes for a small company aren’t nearly as sophisticated,” he says.

“The complexity of those types of applications would be the largest impediment to employee adoption. But for production environments – or supply-chain applications – that are defined by specific processes, [the SaaS model] works well because it helps them to automate those processes,” Mr. Shiau says.

Art Mesher, chief executive officer of Descartes, agrees that the SaaS model is ideal for small operators in the supply-chain sector.

“Logistics is by definition a multiparty process, and the reality is this world is full of lots of small people working for big people,” he says.

“Everyone needs to share information and work together to be successful. “But not everyone can buy a piece of software.”

Offering enterprise-level services on a subscription basis over the Internet lets small businesses do the same things as large businesses. More importantly, it helps the industry as a whole to standardize business processes in a complex world of import/export regulations, delivery schedules, multiple routing requirements, and growing regulatory demands.

Thai Indochine Trading Inc., a food importer and distributor in Markham, Ont., is a relatively new entrant to the world of on-demand logistics services. Although it has only four trucks and 35 employees, it still needs enterprise-level services, says project manager Darren Chung.

Last fall, the company tested the software waters to improve on its old system. “Typically, orders came in and we prioritized them for the daily routes. But we realized we might not be making deliveries in the most cost-effective way,” Mr. Chung says. While the company had always wanted some kind of enabling software to do the job, he says, “We thought it would be really expensive. But when we found an on-demand subscription service, it wasn’t that bad.

“Once we found the right fit, we felt we could look at what improvements we could make to enhance what we were doing.” One of the most useful tools for Thai Indochine is a route-optimization module. It automates and prioritizes deliveries by factoring in delivery volumes, customer time windows and proximity to other delivery sites.

The system also allows Mr. Chung to track deliveries based on drop-off times throughout the day.

“We’re just now learning how to work with all the data for business reporting,” Mr. Chung says. “We can use it to find out if there are any problem locations or timing issues, whereas before we were playing it by ear.

“Now we’ve taken a lot of guesswork out of the process and can actually finish deliveries sooner because there are fewer delays. And it certainly reduces the time it takes to plan routes,” he adds.

Mr. Hrytzak says that in Stewart’s case, the proof of concept is in the customer satisfaction – and quieter offices. “The beauty of it is, if there are delays or problems, everyone down the line knows, and if it gets messed up, it corrects itself. Some people in the organization were getting 100 calls a day. That’s not happening any more, which means we have satisfied customers. And that’s made our VP of sales very happy.”