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Digital Transformation of a Freight Management Company through API Integration
Technology Category
- Functional Applications - Transportation Management Systems (TMS)
- Sensors - GPS
Applicable Industries
- Finance & Insurance
- Transportation
Applicable Functions
- Logistics & Transportation
- Product Research & Development
Use Cases
- Inventory Management
- Public Transportation Management
Services
- System Integration
The Challenge
The client, a US-based freight management company with over 10,000 active carriers, was facing challenges with their legacy ERP system. The system was time-consuming, required a lot of manual work, and was prone to human errors. The company used three different carriers' marketplaces and manually posted new requests from customers on load boards. Agreements for every carrier were created and emailed manually, and a third-party service was used for managing insurance online. The load status and location were tracked using a third-party application, which the customers did not have access to. The company's accountant manually entered all the data necessary for invoicing to the customer and the carrier after getting the information on the delivered freight from a broker. The company owners analyzed the profitability of carriers and customers, as well as brokers' performance by gathering the information from the ERP, the accounting software, and .xls files.
The Customer
US-based freight management company
About The Customer
The client is a US-based freight management company with over 10 years of experience in the market. The company has over 14,000 active carriers in its database and handles large contracts in high-demanding industries of refrigerated, flatbed, dry products, and parcel transportation. The company was ranked as one of the Fastest Growing Companies in the region based on average annual revenue growth. The company stakeholders have been watching digital transformation across the industry and realized the demand for higher agility in transport and logistics operations, essential for providing superior customer service.
The Solution
To increase the efficiency of business processes and avoid human errors, the company decided to replace the ERP with a custom-built Transportation Management System (TMS). The TMS was a web-based solution that allowed brokers to capture every phase of a freight management business cycle. The company also decided to integrate custom APIs with third-party applications to pull data automatically into and out of the TMS. The TMS was integrated with three carrier marketplaces, the carrier onboarding service MyCarrierPackets, a load tracking app, the third-party EFS system, the accounting software QuickBooks, and the AI-platform Hubtran. The TMS also included a Reports tab that allowed the company owners to analyze the profitability of carriers and customers, as well as brokers' performance.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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