Ocean carriers like Hamburg Süd need to provide timely in-transit status updates to their customers. These updates are often part of service-level agreements and are critical for minimizing delays, reducing costs, and maintaining smooth supply chain operations. However, the data required for these updates often comes from various parties, making it challenging to provide accurate and timely information. Previously, Hamburg Süd received monthly data-quality reports in PDF format, which only provided aggregated service level statistics and did not offer detailed insights into regional and local challenges. This limited the carrier's ability to improve operational efficiencies and service levels.

The technology company faced challenges in handling 20%-30% of unplanned orders with non-standard volumes and product mixes. These unplanned orders risked causing customer dissatisfaction, contractual penalties, and higher costs. The company aimed to maximize revenue by not losing feasible orders and minimize risks of reputational damage and increased costs due to missed or delayed order fulfillment. However, the information required to assess order feasibility was spread across multiple internal systems, and data quality was poor. Functional gaps in legacy planning solutions and reliance on manual processes further compounded the challenges.

For this organization, providing great customer service means meeting retailers’ orders on-time, in-full. The company uses customer fill rate as the metric to gauge their service performance. High customer fill rates are driven in large part by accurate demand forecasts which allow the company to ensure sufficient inventory availability. A general challenge for the CPG industry is that the innovation and marketing strategies important to drive growth also have an adverse effect on forecast accuracy, making the business harder to predict. Furthermore, the company made a structural shift from direct-store delivery to warehouse distribution. While this provided value gains in supply chain efficiency, the shift makes it even harder to predict customer demand. To mitigate the impact of these strategies on customer fill rate — and even achieve a net gain in service — the business realized the time had come to take demand forecasting performance to the next level.

As global demand for their data processing services grew, it became mission-critical to quickly set up data centers in many markets around the world. Yet there were complex trade compliance questions around exporting and importing that the company needed to answer — plus customs filings to prepare and submit — for each transaction. Many of the company’s products are subject to stringent U.S. Export Administration Regulations (EAR) with particularly complex licensing and documentation requirements. In addition, when exporting, they must screen against restricted parties in order to meet sanctions requirements from the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). When importing, the company must ensure they meet the entry requirements and have all necessary trade documents ready for each existing country of operation and each new market. The company consolidated much of this required data when they exported goods, but because compliance personnel did not have a single system to work from, they had to assemble the same data a second time for import filings. They already had a process to perform export compliance checks; however, the process was manual and slow. With rapidly increasing demand, it would lead to customs delays. The company realized an entirely different set of capabilities was needed for the next stage of growth. With these objectives in mind, a group was set up within the company specifically to handle compliance responsibilities globally. Their first step was to identify the best way to automate import and export processes to reduce bottlenecks and enable the new growth opportunities. The new system would have to automate both the compliance screenings and the export and import filings as much as possible. For efficiency as well as data reliability, it was essential that all these steps take place on a single platform.

Over the years, GEODIS grew successfully and sustainably by providing traditional third-party logistics (3PL) services such as freight forwarding, shipping, distribution, and customs brokerage assistance. The recent unprecedented rise in globalization introduced new opportunities, but challenges accompanied them as well. Many of GEODIS’ strategic customers expanded, increasing their sales in existing markets all over the world and bringing globally recognized brands into new markets as well. Well-known organizations relied on GEODIS as their exclusive logistics provider, counting on the company to quickly fulfill orders and ensure customer satisfaction, especially in competitive markets. Before long, GEODIS had an extraordinary surge of freight volumes to handle on an ongoing basis.\n\nThe scale of the challenge was significant. By the end of 2019, GEODIS had moved over 300,000 international and domestic small parcels — worth approximately $6 billion — around the world for one major customer alone. This not only stretched GEODIS logistically but also resulted in technology and trade compliance challenges. Soon the same customer added transactional and product data for over 80,000 items in more than 2 million variations to GEODIS’ transportation management system (TMS). These included technologically advanced products that were sensitive in nature and export-controlled by the U.S. Department of Commerce, requiring extra attention.\n\nTo mitigate risk, the customer requested that GEODIS further enhance its export control procedures and take additional compliance measures. GEODIS’ TMS, however, was not yet equipped with the right software for continuously and independently verifying regulatory compliance for the goods in transport. Not only was GEODIS’ logistical proficiency mission-critical, but the company’s management of trade compliance had also become a business imperative. In light of the increasing opportunities and demands of global trade and in response to customer needs, GEODIS decided to take specific measures to improve speed-to-market, reduce logistics and transportation spend and — most importantly — ensure that the movement of goods was in full compliance with all global and local regulations.

The organization’s business environment involved high volumes of imported products and the labyrinth of documentation requirements associated with complex trade operations. The company was trying to manage its processes using mostly manual efforts, which resulted not only in significant duplicate efforts and inconsistency across the organization but also greater risk of non-compliance. For instance, in certain situations the company underpaid or overpaid duties, requiring manual efforts to correct the inaccuracies. With the increasing complexity of managing imports and exports, the company concluded that it could not continue to address global trade operations by simply devoting more people to the department. The organization required a more efficient approach for tackling import and export management. It was also clear that shipment delays due to documentation errors and other international shipping issues were having a negative impact on supply chain cycle times. The company saw an opportunity to take advantage of more substantial duty savings with an automated free trade agreement (FTA) process, which would in turn reduce supply chain costs. In the case of agreement identification and supplier solicitation, the organization’s processes relied on inefficient manual efforts that increased the risk of failing to pass potential audits. The manufacturer was certain that its global trade processes required a transformation.

The GEODIS Control Tower team faced significant challenges in managing global small parcel tracking due to the limitations of their existing third-party technology solution. The system lacked agility, struggled with the complexities of global tracking, and required frequent manual updates. This led to service degradation and an unstable, non-scalable product that necessitated constant IT intervention. The company needed a more robust and faster solution to provide highly reactive tracking tools and enable dynamic orchestration of workflows. Additionally, there was an urgent need to improve organizational processes to reduce the complexity of global parcel management, onboard new customers without IT involvement, and minimize manual activities and redundant data entry.

Due to the unique nature of its business, the LSP used a variety of third-party and homegrown technology solutions — one of which was a point solution from a niche ocean contract management vendor. However, the solution could not provide the level of service required for contract management at the volumes customers needed due to difficulties keeping up with the frequent amendment updates and tariff filing changes in the contracts. Furthermore, the vendor’s limited automation capabilities meant that it had to apply the repeated contract changes manually. The vendor charged the LSP on a time-and-materials basis for doing so, leading to significant cost variability the LSP had to pass on to customers. Cost variability runs contrary to every rule in business management, and the LSP knew it was wise to make a change. Since critical data would be shared between the new ocean contract management solution and the LSP’s enterprise resource management (ERP) system, the ability to align the contract management solution with the ERP system became an important factor. The LSP realized that the right way to respond to the contract compliance challenges was to utilize a single platform for carrier contract management with integrated, accurate regulatory trade and customs data from authorities worldwide. With the complexity of both buy-side carrier and sell-side shipper contracts involved in operations, it was crucial to ensure that all pricing structures reflected the most current fees and tariffs imposed by the FMC and other agencies.

Allied Electronics made a concerted effort to focus on trade compliance, citing increased regulatory complexity and policing of regulations, competitors developing new capabilities, higher customer and supplier expectations and the shifting sanction/embargo environment. The Allied Director of Quality & Compliance stated that “Allied is fully committed to trade compliance and, as a company with a large volume and high tempo customer service business model, required a robust and scalable automated solution to support the business as it grows and expands internationally.”

Unilever, a global leader in consumer products, faced significant challenges in managing its ocean logistics operations. The company aimed to streamline these processes, achieve greater efficiency, and improve visibility. The complexity of coordinating ocean shipments to multiple destinations required a robust solution to manage key shipping lanes and integrate seamlessly with their existing transport management system.

Aeroflex USA, a building products manufacturer, faced significant challenges in managing its complex global logistics network. The company relied on manual processes and traditional communication methods like phone, fax, and email to handle truckload (TL), less-than-truckload (LTL), and ocean shipments across multiple distribution centers. Despite having invested in a Microsoft Dynamics solution for material requirements planning (MRP), Aeroflex found traditional transportation management systems (TMS) to be prohibitively expensive. The company needed a cost-effective, user-friendly TMS that required minimal IT overhead to improve supply chain efficiency.

In thinking about what the company would need to meet its growth objectives, the logistics team realized the current process itself created a clear barrier to growth because it wasn’t scalable. Essentially, the team needed to manually look up contract and rate data for each new transaction. “We are expanding our business into international markets, adding new contracts and rates, and therefore needed a fully automated process that allowed us to handle more quoting without having to hire additional staff,” said the company’s SVP of Global Marine and International Logistics Services. Additionally, the growing company wanted to upgrade its service offerings by integrating an automated system into its own solution platform that would allow its customers, with little or no experience in pricing, to compare full bottom-line rates across multiple service contracts on their own.

As a global industrial group, Sandvik has approximately 600,000 trading partners and over 3 million shipments and orders per year that require compliance screening. The challenges of properly managing such volume and complexity are further intensified for divisions that work in highly regulated fields with fast-changing restrictions and requirements. To manage its trade compliance, Sandvik traditionally depended on manual processes and, in some of its companies, on a restricted party screening tool that had limited functionality. The manual and highly fragmented process was time-consuming and unreliable, particularly in light of Sandvik’s dynamic compliance environment. For example, new European Union (EU) regulations regarding trade with sanctioned countries meant that Sandvik had to review and assess all its trading relationships – a painstaking manual process that had to be implemented across multiple export centers. As its markets changed, Sandvik found that it was increasingly facing highly regulated and complex trade transactions that required more comprehensive compliance evaluation. Uncomfortable with its potential exposure, Sandvik decided to implement a formal trade compliance process. It needed to be able to centralize its database of all relevant information and institute automated processes for ensuring global compliance. Additionally, on a global scale, Sandvik realized that it was not fully exploiting potentially favorable trade regimes. With better, formalized export controls processes, Sandvik would be able to expand business with countries that it had not traditionally considered, and thus gain a new competitive edge.

To gain control of transportation costs, the company sought to eliminate manual processes and improve order visibility. Sargento’s existing transportation management system (TMS) was not able to meet operational requirements. Orders were planned into shipments without considering cost, service or contractual commitments to carriers, and there was an inability to accurately allocate transportation costs at the order level. Sargento chose to implement a flexible, scalable multimodal transportation management system that would meet their operational needs today and in the future. The company established a list of goals for a new TMS to meet: Integrate with 30 carriers, Ship approximately 3,000 orders per month, Transport an average of 24 million pounds of products per month, Integrate with existing supply chain software, and Straight-through processing of order data via EDI.

As Oshkosh Corporation pushed for continuous improvement in the efficiency of its trade operations, it began searching for a global trade management (GTM) solution provider in 2012. The company's Defense and Access segments created a complex compliance environment due to their global presence and the regulatory nature of their products. The company faced higher levels and diversity of compliance risks, such as export controls, restricted party screening, potential dual-use and ITAR-controlled goods, and customs filing. Additionally, Oshkosh recognized an opportunity to leverage free trade agreements (FTAs) like NAFTA and USMCA to lower duty costs. However, FTAs are complex, requiring the company to determine which parts or components fit the guidelines and comply with all documentation and record-keeping requirements. The compliance teams needed an efficient way to ask thousands of suppliers for FTA documents certifying the preferential origin status of each applicable part or component.

This leading European multinational retailer faced significant challenges in managing its large-scale procurement and logistics operations. The company places over 100,000 purchase orders annually with more than 800 suppliers worldwide. The existing transportation management system (TMS) lacked the sophistication to gather and organize shipment information from suppliers, making it difficult to track inbound goods to distribution hubs. Additionally, the supply chain team was not receiving timely updates from ocean carriers and freight forwarders, which handle over 50,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) each year. The retailer aimed to reduce costs and reliance on freight forwarders by utilizing in-house logistics teams. The new technology solution needed to offer broad capabilities, including order and supplier collaboration, transportation planning, and shipment execution on a single platform.

As the company pushed for continuous improvement in customer service and efficiency, a costly trade operations bottleneck became evident. With products being sold only in the United States and Canada, leveraging a free trade agreement (FTA) between these countries is a significant duty savings opportunity for the organization. But there were recurring challenges — including delays — when clearing Customs into Canada. Due to a lack of automated processes, the company did not always have the necessary documentation from suppliers when shipments were crossing the border. As a result, the company paid the duty upfront and later filed paperwork to reclaim those payments, a process called drawback. It was not uncommon for the duty reconciliation process to go on for 12 months, restricting cash flow to the tune of up to $3 million annually. Any customs delays or unnecessary expenses were more than just an operational problem. They were a brand problem. To transform its trade operations, the organization realized it needed to reduce complications at the border, overhaul its poor handling of duty payments and gain efficiencies by replacing an outdated, manual approach.

The semiconductor manufacturer faced significant challenges due to rapid growth through acquisitions, leading to increased manufacturing complexity and siloed data. The disparate manufacturing execution systems (MESs) from acquired companies created data silos, making it difficult to track products through the manufacturing and testing cycle. The company also experienced a dramatic increase in transaction volumes, nearly doubling in the preceding five years, which strained employee and system workloads. Additionally, the large number of lots moving through the network required close tracking for quality purposes and to minimize excess and obsolete inventory. The existing MES solution did not provide cross-factory visibility or traceability, necessitating a new solution to achieve end-to-end network visibility, enable multi-tier collaboration, and manage quality throughout every manufacturing phase.

Volvo needed to improve visibility and business efficiencies across global operations. The company looked to design and deploy a new transportation management system (TMS) that could serve as the backbone of its vehicle distribution network by planning, optimizing, and tracking shipments of all finished vehicles from its four global factories to 2,300 dealerships worldwide. Volvo recently expanded its footprint to include a new factory in the U.S., which will also use the technology, including rail capabilities. Volvo established a list of goals for a TMS: bring consistency and efficiency to time-consuming, costly business processes, increase visibility across global operations, and improve agility and the ability to respond quickly to changing business dynamics.

The company was in need of a resource with expertise in TMS configuration and data analysis to enhance system utilization and improve KPI reporting to deliver continuous improvement. Dawn Foods also wanted access to the rate benchmarking tool and the e2open® Road Freight Market Index reporting to support informed decision-making through an understanding of current market conditions.

Qatar Post launched a transformation program in 2015 to enable a “Digital Qatar Post” through innovative, sustainable technology solutions. Operations mobility was a key focus of the initiative. Qatar Post needed to upgrade the operations’ mobility capabilities, both software and hardware, to address postal work environments and Qatar climate conditions. The company required software with functionality to enable item scanning and event capture, pick-up/delivery list synchronization, proof of delivery capture, payment acceptance, navigation and routing, and address geotagging and validation.

To meet consumer demand driven by the growth in e-commerce, Belk committed in recent years to investing in supply chain technology enhancements to better serve customers, including finding new methods to optimize fulfillment and shift more e-commerce delivery origins from distribution centers to stores. While simple in theory, executing store-level shipping presents considerable challenges, including limited carrier selection and complex rate shopping.

PLD’s transportation team was working in a decentralized manner, with carrier routing decisions being made by staff at each of its locations who were relying on multiple, nonintegrated systems to manage their work. The company’s existing system provided carrier rating support with limited load and mode planning for less-than-truckload (LTL) and truckload shipments, but lacked small parcel rating and shipping capabilities. Additionally, the system did not provide carrier times-in-transit to support accurate delivery planning. Freight audit and invoicing was handled on two disparate systems, which resulted in extra steps to merge invoicing data for analysis. Patrick Heelan, PLD’s VP of Logistics, knew that the company could improve decision-making and efficiency by adopting a centralized, real-time transportation management (TMS) solution that could provide rates and transit times for all modes. “Ship dates get pushed completely upstream through the entire process, all the way through to when that product needs to be manufactured so that we can ship it on time to our customer.” In the case of shipping incomplete orders, his team also needed the ability to re-rate and replan the shipment for lowest cost on-time delivery. “We needed one system to process all shipments, all modes, with all of our data on orders in one place,” he said. “Data visibility is critical to everything we do between pricing our products, where we’re storing them – everything. We’re constantly looking at data.”

With over 1.5 million shipments in an eight-week long shipping peak, Colony Brands needed a solution to manage its throughput and carrier compliance along with customized labeling, and to streamline its shipping of approximately 80 percent of annual volume during the holiday peak.

Karon Evanoff, Vice President of Global Supply Chain at QSC, LLC, faces modern challenges in managing logistics, procurement, sourcing, global planning, and trade compliance. The pandemic, geopolitical influences, and material shortages have made her day-to-day operations more tactical. Despite these pressures, Karon emphasizes the importance of digital transformation and the need for modern technology to stay relevant and innovative. She highlights the limitations of traditional ERP systems and the necessity of using visibility platforms and collaborative tools to manage the rapidly changing technology landscape.

Cummins had difficulty managing carrier information and shipment specifications. Producing shipping labels and transmitting shipping information according to each carrier’s specifications was a complex and time-consuming process. Cummins needed to take control of their shipping, streamline operations and improve warehouse efficiency.

Bausch + Lomb faced significant challenges in managing their distribution system due to the use of 25 different carriers, each with unique services and barcodes. This complexity made label maintenance labor-intensive and costly. Additionally, tracking thousands of items across different carrier sites was time-consuming and inefficient, preventing Bausch + Lomb from providing accurate delivery times to customers. They needed a unified system to link all carriers, enforce compliance, and streamline tracking processes.

More than half of Ace Hardware’s shipments move as freight collect, meaning Ace pays for the moves. The inbound transportation process was managed manually with spreadsheets, utilizing inefficient processes and producing outdated information. Ace wanted better control of inbound transportation to automate processes, gain efficiencies, understand costs, and identify areas for improvement. Ace was also in the process of implementing an ERP solution, a project expected to take three to four years and consume many IT resources. Meanwhile, the company recognized the potential ROI of deploying a TMS and decided to prioritize the TMS project to find a solution requiring limited IT resources. Ace sought to improve visibility into inventory and orders while gaining control of supplier performance and freight costs. The company established a list of goals for a TMS: gain visibility into true freight costs, identify and manage inbound freight, centralize freight payment, obtain business intelligence to assess carrier performance, and reduce freight costs.

humedica needed an efficient customs software solution that keeps abreast of the guidelines in the individual countries and allows easy, secure data exchange with local customs authorities, along with operation of a customs warehouse. The organization had to comply with the various regulations for electronic customs processing in each country, and the movement of goods through third-party countries was increasing. Country-specific customs regulations and initiatives such as the Import Control System (ICS) make electronic customs processing increasingly complex and time-consuming. The solution had to be modularly built and easy to learn — and it had to be adaptable to future requirements.

Raben Group faced the challenge of managing a growing and complex logistics operation across multiple countries and business units. They needed a scalable, multimodal transportation management solution that could integrate various business units and systems, provide visibility across the entire operation, and support different languages, currencies, and time zones. Additionally, they required a solution that could operate on a hub-and-spoke basis to support complex planning processes.