Multicarrier parcel management solutions help companies select the most appropriate parcel carrier from among all contracted carriers. This selection is based on order characteristics (such as weight and dimensional properties), delivery rules (such as delivery time and delivery zone) and carrier performance, while considering the cost differentials of various carrier offerings. These tools also enable shippers and 3PLs to manage the creation of labels, create shipper manifests, provide status messages to customers or customer service representatives, and manage carrier rates.
Gartner defines multienterprise collaboration networks (MCNs) as solutions that support a community of trading partners of any tier and type that need to coordinate and execute on business processes extending across multiple enterprises. Gartner considers cloud-based MCNs to be a key technology to coordinate, orchestrate and automate an organization’s extended supply chain within the overall business ecosystem they operate in. The key capabilities of MCN solutions include three layers: Network representation and management, Application functions, Embedded analytics and intelligence.