Case study: Tech drives better outcomes
The company
A multi-billion-dollar transportation solutions organization provides intermodal, drayage, shipping, truck brokerage, and logistics services. Known as a world-class industry leader, the enterprise has a longstanding proven track record of success. The company offers comprehensive services for clients in the US, Canada, and Mexico.
The need
The shipping and logistics industry is in a technology and staffing arms race. In addition to increased demand for staff, logistics organizations are grappling with the ever-shifting complexities of a changing climate and upstream dependencies from suppliers and customers. For an industry where seconds count, the need to remedy inconsistent workflows and legacy technology issues are very real. Hampering an employee’s ability to operate effectively from the road or away from the office can directly undercut the bottom line. Industry peers were already investing in tech and realizing returns, where this organization was lagging. The enterprise needed to figure out how to keep pace and leapfrog competitors. The company turned to Devbridge for strategic support to determine how tech investments could both match and undercut rivals.
The approach
The Devbridge team mapped out a strategic discovery plan—leveraging service design principles—to determine how to close the tech gap relative to competitors, offer table-stakes functionality, and differentiate. To better understand the current state and future state, the team sought to validate and discover distinguishing features, confirm assumptions around valuable carrier functionality, uncover unknown needs, and gain contextual insights into the overall brokerage ecosystem. The team facilitated a series of activities including 1:1 carrier and dispatcher interviews, onsite observations of current load and dispatch workflow, competitive analysis of portals and use, an extensive list of suggested differentiators, and defining the dispatch persona and workflow.
The outcome
Armed with deeper insights into the company needs, limitations, and competitive research, the team generated a robust strategy for a custom multi-faceted logistics platform. These findings informed the creation and prioritization of design assets for custom software development. Ultimately, the insights not only de-risked a future investment, they also offered a more fulsome picture of next steps for design, prototyping, and delivery. The company was now equipped with a clear plan to build a well-designed product with multimodal options and recommendations to drive value, increase market share, and address operational efficiencies.