Should you Buy a Delivery Route Planner or Build your own?

A day-by-day list of customers’ demands is increasing and we ain’t expecting them going down in near future. And therefore, it is understandable why so many businesses are looking out for an alternative to sort out the delivery management hassles.

Kudos to those delivery drivers and dispatchers who are doing an awesome job in making successful deliveries. However, if you’re still falling short of customers’ expectations, you badly need your own route optimization software. 

You might agree with this because even if you are doing great in your business, providing user experience could be missing. This is why sooner or later, you will realize a need for a route optimization platform. If you are willing to get routing optimization software, then you are landed on the right page. 
Diving deep into this topic, here we will discover the answer to Route Optimization Software – Should You Build Or Buy? So folks, give a full read.

Know What Are Your Requirements

Business owners who are planning to buy route optimization software should analyze their needs. So, consider the business aspects and calculate what resources you will need. Also, discuss with your team about difficulties they experience during the entire delivery process. This will help you make a wise decision regarding software development. 

Since your business requires daily delivery operations, there are chances that you will find it difficult to assign tasks to the driver and manually guide them to the efficient route. Sounds familiar? Then, you should deploy a delivery route planner and optimization software.

Moreover, you can simply use the APIs rather than developing software internally to overcome delivery challenges. By doing so, this operational optimization system will not let you slip into delivery troubles and your business would flourish.

Does Your Team Is Well-skilled?

If you are planning to establish the software for route optimizer, then firstly you need to ask yourself whether employees working under you are skilled or not. After all, it’s teamwork that matters the most.

In case, you do not have such employees, you need to look out for IT minds. Of course, they will help you build a route planner, but they demand a wholesome amount of money. 

During the survey, take some time to check out if employees have prior experience in route planning and optimization. Otherwise, those people who have knowledge limited to Google Maps or mobile apps can not lead to successful completion of the project.

However, if possible, it would be expensive to build all route optimization software features. Also, your team must consist of IT professionals who can provide the cloud-based system. In short, building route optimization software for web and mobile platforms require serious team efforts.

How Difficult It Is To Build Software From Scratch?

Once you have made up your mind to build an entire software, you will need to carefully analyze what features you would require the most. Then, estimate the overall cost to build the new software. The list does not end here as you will need more professional hands to develop route optimization software from scratch. In short, this time-consuming process would bring multiple challenges for you.

However, even if you have custom software ready, it would not have all customer-friendly route optimizing features. Therefore, managing the database, checking the availability of drivers, and dispatching would be difficult tasks.

It is suggested that you must not build software in haste because your team would have complexity in developing some features. Adding to that, a newly-developed route optimizer would be inaccurate in tracking real-time data. Hence, you may face delays in updates. 

Most of the time, in a hurry to make the fastest delivery, you might forget to collect the e-signature from the buyer. But, that is not your fault because your routing system would not have such functionality. 

On that note, let us move on to check why buying new route optimization software could be a better choice.

5 Reasons Why Should You Buy Routing Software

When you purchase route optimization software from a popular software vendor, you don’t have to worry about delivery routes challenges. Now let’s find out why business owners prefer buying ready-made software instead of building it.

1. Wide Range of In-built Features

   Online route optimization software offers a wide range of features for admin and delivery crew. From planning optimized routes to enhancing user experience, it helps you make deliveries faster. Also, it can be easy to use for drivers and dispatchers. On the flip side, customers will be updated via delivery notifications in a timely manner.

2. Pay As Per Usage

   Buying your own software for route optimization means that you don’t have to pay extra for services like customer notifications or delivery proofs. Simply, you can select a suitable plan as per your wish and pay accordingly. Thus, your business productivity would increase without affecting your financial figures.

3. On-demand Generation of Reports

   Creating reports for past and present services will be a tedious job as you need to consider the driver’s performance, time is taken for deliveries and vehicle costs. This is where the online tools for route optimization can quickly assist you in creating on-demand reports. Therefore, it would be easier to maintain the delivery records using cloud-based route optimization software.

4. Better Customer Experience

   No matter which different ways you adopt to please the customer, they will still demand better service from your end. This won’t be the case if you are using advanced route optimization software like Upper Route Planner. This is because it is equipped with customer-friendly features which make sure you don’t get unnecessary calls from them.

5. Delivery Notifications

   It is one of the most useful software components that keeps the customer in the loop during the entire delivery process. Developing software for route optimization may not have accurately working delivery notifications. This is why business owners buy the online route manager and optimizer to automatically enable delivery notifications for their customers.

Conclusion

Business owners like you will save more time and resources if they take advantage of the right route optimization software. The reason why most owners turned down building new software is its never-ending software development process. Turning the tables, it is safe to say that buying route optimization software ticks all the boxes right for the user.

So, what’s the final result? In a battle of build vs buy decision, it is the latter that dominates the delivery businesses. Since buying software has become the preferred choice for owners, those who are relying on building software may need serious efforts to mark their presence in the industry.

Moreover, building software would not be the permanent solution for delivery troubles and you may see clients making false claims. If you are keen to get your hands on online cloud computing software, we recommend you book a demo and let our customer success manager helps you to explore Upper Route Planner and its range of features.