HOCHTIEF, an international construction group, was grappling with the challenge of managing a vast amount of digital content including images, videos, PowerPoint presentations, Word documents, and PDFs. The company was in need of a digital asset management (DAM) solution that could integrate with Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign, and Microsoft Office. The solution was required to support sales, marketing, and communication activities through a centralized, expandable media database with a comfortable search functionality. The DAM solution was expected to be accessible to HOCHTIEF employees from eight different European countries and about 40 external partners. Additionally, HOCHTIEF sought to expand its existing CELUM solution with a press portal and automatic synchronization of website images with the CELUM database to reduce the workload for the marketing staff and minimize sources of error.

Boden, a UK-based fashion retailer, was undergoing a digital transformation. The company aimed to provide the right product at the right time, relevant and timely communication, and personalized and localized experiences. To achieve this, their creative teams needed to produce more content in a shorter amount of time. Photography, being a key part of any content they produce, added to the complexity of the task. The company could no longer rely on traditional methods like folder structures and spreadsheets to find what is available to them. The challenge was to produce more content in less time to support their digital transformation.

Carey Color Inc., a full-service, technology-driven communications company, faced the challenge of utilizing both existing and new technologies to deliver optimal results for their customers. The company needed to manage complex workflows, ranging from small to large, and integrate with other software such as Adobe InDesign. Some of Carey’s larger customers use DALIM ES for photography workflows, where files are imported for quality control and marked up for corrections and color accuracy. The company needed a system that offered more than just digital asset management (DAM), as various stakeholders including eCommerce, legal, artists, marketing, buyers and others are involved in the process. The system also needed to accommodate a high volume of users, with as many as 40-50 users on the system at any given time.

ISDIN, an international cosmetics and dermatology retail brand, was facing a challenge in streamlining their packaging artwork review and lifecycle management. With a wide product range extending throughout many countries around the world, ISDIN needed an integrated platform to streamline its text and artwork management review. The review process involved many areas in its company, such as marketing, QA, its technical office and regulatory department. Reviews also involved their external partners, such as printers, packaging suppliers and third-party manufacturers. The increasing workload due to market success necessitated a solution that could provide real-time updates on the status of each project, including details such as pending approvals.

Splashlight, a visual content and technology provider, was faced with the challenge of working transparently with clients to plan and improve their creative production processes. The company needed a 'central nervous system' that would align all parties involved, including merchandise teams, photographers, post-production teams, and the client, on the production schedule. This was necessary to support faster delivery of assets and allow for real-time adjustments to marketing strategies. Furthermore, Splashlight wanted a service that would enable brands managing enormous amounts of merchandise to not only track their assets in incredible detail but also create their own personalized system of accountability.

Focus Brands, a leading developer of global, multi-channel food service brands, faced a significant challenge in bringing together and streamlining the operations of its seven distinct brands. Each brand, acquired over a period of years, had its own processes, needs, and standards. The company needed to centralize its assets in a single Digital Asset Management (DAM) system to better serve franchisees and customers worldwide. The goal was to eliminate bottlenecks in the creative department and establish a feedback loop to understand which assets resonated with customers. The challenge also involved seamlessly integrating assets into all relevant channels while continuously improving customer experiences.

Volvo Trucks North America, a division of Volvo Group Trucks, faced significant marketing challenges despite its established reputation. The company struggled with internal collaboration gaps and communication issues with its dealer network, which hindered its sales potential. The IT department was also burdened with the time-consuming task of preparing images for their eCommerce platform, which facilitates aftermarket parts sales. These communication and information gaps, along with other logistical challenges, prevented Volvo Trucks teams across the North American organization from reaching their full sales and profit potential.

Agence Surf, a creative marketing communications agency based in Paris, France, faced a significant challenge when the COVID-19 pandemic forced a shift to remote work. The agency, known for its expertise in branding, packaging, and digital marketing, relied heavily on Extensis’s font manager Universal Type Server (UTS) for their creative projects. However, the work-from-home requirements disrupted their workflow as managing updates to UTS on their server hardware became a productivity hurdle. The team needed continuous access to their fonts in UTS, which meant they had to stay connected to their VPN all the time. This led to a slower workflow, especially when working in memory-intensive design apps through their VPN. The agency recognized this situation as unsustainable and sought a solution that could provide flexible font management, eliminate font-related errors, and remove chaos from their creative process.

Anheuser-Busch, a leading beverage company, had set ambitious sustainability goals for 2025, including a 25% reduction in carbon emissions across its entire value chain. However, the company faced a significant challenge in achieving these goals due to the 20 million annual empty miles in its supply chain. These empty miles represented a significant source of carbon emissions and inefficiency. Anheuser-Busch operates more than 100 facilities in North America, moving approximately 800,000 shipments per year across 12,000 unique lanes. The company uses a large private fleet and aims for a 50-50 balance between its own assets and purchased transportation. However, filling the backhauls of Anheuser-Busch's private fleet posed a significant challenge, representing a massive opportunity for efficiency gains and reduced environmental impact.

CHEP, an Australian pallet, crate, and container pooling company, faced a significant challenge in managing the relocation of its pallets from surplus markets to deficit markets. This process resulted in a considerable amount of carbon waste in the form of empty miles. The company, which operates in more than 500 supply chain points in North America and supplies pallets to approximately 14,000 manufacturing locations in the United States, found the management of these pallets to be an incredibly complex task. The pallets are taken in by customers, loaded with freight, shipped to distribution centers and warehouses, deconsolidated, reconsolidated, and then sent further downstream to more than 19,000 retail locations. CHEP collects pallets from these locations and refurbishes them to be used again. The imbalance in freight flows in the United States, due to uneven distribution of production and consumption, necessitated the relocation of pallets, resulting in longer lengths of haul between CHEP's own supply chain points.

Dropps, a company known for its innovative detergent pods, was facing a significant challenge in aligning its supply chain with its sustainability goals. The company had a complex network of distributors and a third-party fulfillment center that shipped inventory to big-box stores. This model was neither efficient nor cost-effective. Moreover, Dropps was competing for shopper attention and shelf space with other brands in brick-and-mortar retail stores. The company wanted to reduce its carbon footprint and make its supply chain as light and efficient as its detergent pods. To achieve this, Dropps needed a new freight partner that could help optimize routes and control carbon emissions.

Encore Glass, a company that transitioned from recycling bottles to importing new glass and creating custom packaging for customers, faced a significant challenge in managing its transportation operations. The company had identified experienced carriers to work with, but lacked the means to efficiently manage the relationships with these carriers. The sales and customer service teams were responsible for finding their own transportation solutions, including booking trucks, which was a time-consuming process. Furthermore, they often purchased transportation at a significant premium to market prices. The lack of a dedicated transportation team stood in stark contrast to Encore's commitment to customer service, which included fulfilling even the smallest customers' needs with exactly the right bottles, delivered just in time to be filled. The challenge was particularly acute when serving small winemakers in remote areas, who often lacked sufficient storage space.

Faurecia, a French tier-one auto parts supplier, was grappling with the complexity of its North American transportation network. The company was seeking to simplify its network, reduce costs, and improve service. The challenge was to find reliable carriers who could deliver their high-value automotive freight on time. The truckload carriers that run automotive freight tend to specialize in it and offer dedicated capacity solutions that can become embedded on very regular, repetitive lanes. This made it difficult for non-asset transportation providers to break into those verticals. Furthermore, the specific requirements of the commodities might make them unsuited for digital freight brokerage.

In 2021, a global bottler experienced a significant surge in consumer demand for beverages. However, they faced a major challenge in finding reliable capacity to keep up with the increased volume. Their transportation teams were left scrambling to secure capacity through the spot market, which proved to be more costly and unpredictable. The bottler, being among the top three bottlers for one of the world's largest beverage producers, had to ensure product availability, trucking capacity, and transportation budgets to fulfill the demand. The situation was further complicated as food and beverage producers across the U.S. struggled to find carriers able and willing to transport additional volume. Carriers they did secure often reneged on their contracts, leaving transportation teams scrambling to find often last-minute, unpredictable, and expensive capacity on the spot market.

Joyin, a North American third-party toy seller to major retailers, faced a significant challenge in managing its rapid growth and shifting inventory. The company's revenue had been doubling year over year, and by 2020, it had more than doubled its 2019 revenue of $60 million to reach $140 million. This growth was accompanied by an expansion of its product catalog, with 1,000 items added since April, bringing the total inventory to 3,000 items. However, Joyin's existing shipping platform was unable to keep pace with this growth, leading to inefficiencies and a lack of visibility and control over operations. The situation was further complicated in 2020 when Amazon temporarily prohibited third-party sellers from shipping and storing nonessential goods at its warehouses, posing a significant operational challenge for Joyin.

A leading premium bottled water brand was grappling with supply chain resilience issues, particularly during seasonal surges. The brand's production processes were agile, adjusting bottling and shipping locations on a weekly basis to meet customer demand and drive operational efficiencies. However, this made it challenging to accurately forecast shipment volumes, define pickup facilities, and designate drop-off destinations. The brand also experienced seasonal surges during summer months, which further complicated their logistics. High customer expectations added to the pressure, making it crucial for the brand to find a solution that could ensure reliable and efficient delivery of their products.

Aterian, a tech-enabled Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) platform, was faced with the challenge of optimizing its supply chain to deliver the most valuable product at the best possible price. The company's business model relies heavily on the flexibility and responsiveness of its supply chain to keep up with customer demand. The rise of e-commerce and the shift from brick-and-mortar retail models posed a significant challenge for Aterian. Traditional CPG companies often lack insight into consumer behavior and decision-making processes, which are crucial in the e-commerce landscape. Furthermore, Aterian needed to adapt its product design to align with the e-commerce distribution model, as most of its product lines were legacy products not designed with e-commerce insights.

Owens Corning, a global company with operations in 33 countries, faced a sudden need for additional capacity from its Santa Clara insulation manufacturing plant. The challenge was to find a freight provider that could deliver excellent service and meet the increased demand. The company's logistics operation for its insulation products is more 'just in time' than many realize, with tight delivery windows to distributors who often have installation crews waiting to unload the truck, load their own truck, and take it to the job site for installation. The company needed a solution that could not only meet the increased demand but also integrate seamlessly with its operations and provide superior service to its customers.

The Home Depot, a leading home improvement retailer, faced significant challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. The company had to deal with the possibility of social distancing in warehouse and distribution facilities, and manage extraordinarily volatile demand. The nature of their freight, which includes bulky, heavy, and difficult-to-handle items such as appliances, lumber, light fixtures, and power tools, made loading and unloading time-consuming. This potentially delayed carriers and pushed detention costs higher. The company also had to manage the additional physical asset and matching problem in the yard due to their heavy reliance on drop trailers. The pandemic further complicated these issues, necessitating a quick response to lessen the impact on drivers and implement a flexible strategy for loading and unloading trucks.

Waiākea, a premium water brand, was facing challenges with its linehaul transportation, which was primarily less-than-truckload (LTL). The LTL carriers were less flexible, took longer to book, and the rates penalized the water for its weight. This was not only time-consuming but also costly for Waiākea. The company needed to convert their LTL shipments to full truckload while retaining their CarbonNeutral status. The growth of the company also meant that a network of warehouses had to be designed and built to serve the entire country. Waiākea wanted its warehouses to be within a two-day transit of each other, and they needed to be able to ship quickly to local distributors that were stocking shelves at retail locations, typically within five miles of their own locations.

ParcelPoint, a rapidly growing logistics and supply chain company based in Australia, was facing significant operational challenges. The company's operations department was in a state of disarray, with team members executing tasks without a clear direction, leading to disorganization and chaos. The rapid introduction of new products and processes meant that team members were constantly playing catch-up, leading to inefficiencies and wasted time. Operations Manager Charlotte Wallwork was spending half of her day explaining things and answering the same questions repeatedly. The lack of a structured workflow management system was hindering the company's growth and sustainability.

pLink Leadership, a fully virtual company with team members across the United States, faced a significant challenge in maintaining consistency and efficiency in their operations due to the absence of well-documented standard operating procedures (SOPs). The company initially attempted to document their processes in a Word document, which quickly grew to an unwieldy 85 pages. However, the rapid pace of change in their operations meant that the information in the document quickly became outdated. Furthermore, the large size of the document made it difficult for team members to find the information they needed, leading to slow processes and frustrated employees.

Preferred Home Services, a rapidly growing residential home service company based in South Carolina, was facing operational challenges due to ineffective communication and lack of an efficient workflow software. The absence of a streamlined process was hindering the free flow of information among employees, leading to frequent queries about job responsibilities and procedures. This was not only affecting the efficiency of the team but also impacting the quality of service provided to the customers. The situation was further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to an increase in household repair issues as people spent more time at home. The company needed a solution that could enhance their operations, improve communication, and enable employees to execute their jobs independently.

David Brannen, the founder of Resolute Legal, faced significant challenges in establishing and scaling his business. His passion for helping people with disabilities secure deserved compensation was the driving force behind his venture. However, the absence of a structured business model and the overwhelming task of managing all aspects of the business single-handedly hindered his progress. The lack of a system to manage the various moving parts of his business was a significant concern. The fear of potential pitfalls and the inability to scale his business due to disorganization and lack of structure were major obstacles in achieving his goal.

Rise25, a company that connects businesses to their clients through effective podcast and content marketing strategies, was struggling with managing their workflow. The co-founder, Dr. Jeremy Weisz, recognized the importance of having detailed standard operating procedures (SOPs) to organize the many moving parts involved in launching and managing successful podcasts. However, the SOPs created in Google Docs were unstructured and difficult to work with. The team found it challenging to execute tasks successfully, even with the documented procedures. The documentation system they were using was not effective, and the team often had to rely on Jeremy for help, creating a bottleneck situation. This was not sustainable in the long run and was hindering the company's growth and customer satisfaction levels.

ShipCalm, an e-commerce focused logistics company, was facing challenges in managing its growing customer base due to the absence of a solid workflow system. The CEO, Ted Fogliani, was keen on streamlining operations but found that the tools available fell short in one area or the other. This lack of an effective system was impacting the efficiency of his employees as they had limited information to execute tasks. The company was getting stretched beyond its limits, both in terms of employees and facilities, and there was an urgent need to address this issue before it escalated.

Simple Solutions, a B2B consulting company based in Colombia, was facing significant operational challenges due to the lack of standardized procedures and documentation. The company, which specializes in improving planning and scheduling processes for clients in manufacturing, retail, and distribution, was struggling with inefficiencies and repeated mistakes. The absence of a unified approach to task management led to inconsistencies in work, with employees often having to redo tasks due to errors. The CEO, Alejandro Céspedes, found himself constantly addressing the same queries from his assistant, who despite his guidance, kept making mistakes. The lack of established systems also affected the sales funnel, with Céspedes making errors in sales proposals due to the need for customization. The company was using a mix of tools like Basecamp and Trello for project documentation and organization, but these were not sufficient for process documentation. The lack of standardized procedures was also affecting the quality of service to clients, with different team members providing different answers.

Spark Marketer, a marketing agency for small and medium-sized local businesses, was facing operational challenges due to the lack of standard operating procedures (SOPs). The company, co-founded by Carter Harkins, had been operating without SOPs, leading to a lack of organization and accountability among employees. The absence of SOPs also resulted in a lack of confidence in employee performance, as there were no operational standards to guide them. The company's reliance on tribal knowledge for task execution led to inefficiencies and a lack of performance tracking. The lack of documentation was a significant issue, with employees often let go without a clear understanding of their deficiencies.

Stone & Wood, a brewing company based in Australia, was facing significant operational challenges. The company was struggling to maintain quality assurance and smooth operations, which were crucial in their industrial environment. The existing system of using binders and Microsoft Word documents for documenting their processes was proving to be inefficient and insufficient. Updating work procedures and processes was another major challenge. The use of outdated procedures could potentially disrupt the entire production process, leading to wastage of time and resources. The company needed a more effective system to streamline their operations and ensure adherence to regulatory standards in the industry.

Tameer Inc., a mechanical construction company based in New York City, was facing a significant challenge in managing its internal knowledgebase. The company's CEO, Bilal Farooq, was constantly bombarded with work-related questions from employees, which was not only time-consuming but also disrupted his primary responsibilities. The situation was becoming untenable, with the CEO having to juggle between his executive duties and acting as a knowledgebase for the company. Despite attempts to document processes manually in handbooks, the company was unable to effectively disseminate information to its employees, making it difficult to bring them up to speed.