Executive Summary

One of Europe’s largest transport companies wanted to upgrade its operations by creating a digital platform that unifies all processes and resources. The company also saw opportunity in marketing it to rival companies and turned to BearingPoint as the official partner.

Deriving a new business idea from the need to change operationally

Transporting goods efficiently over large distances requires easily accessible data and good transparency. The European transport company recognized that conventional ways of working, relying heavily on phone communication, were time consuming, less transparent and cost ineffective. A multitude of applications were being used for different tasks without being linked, making the workflow hampered. The whereabouts of drivers on route were still largely determined with phone calls made by dispatchers, also making arrival estimations difficult.

Our client saw the opportunity to leverage decades of transport logistics experience and create a digital platform that would upgrade the conventional ways of working and become a salable software-as-a-service (SaaS) for the industry.

Creating and selling a planning platform based on real-life needs

The European transport company selected BearingPoint to be the exclusive partner for a new subsidiary focused entirely on developing and selling the new platform. By using extensive experience in product development, BearingPoint assisted the newly created company throughout the development and roll-out of the product.

Together, they first approached potential buyers to gain a clear understanding of their everyday needs and later used this information in the development of the product. BearingPoint helped the client understand the implications of bringing the product to the market, with workshops on product development, approaching legal issues, GDPR compliance and service scaling.

The product was then designed from the software architecture perspective, using an agile approach and DevOps teams applying a set of practices that combine software development and IT operations. This was followed by implementation and setup to enable the transport company to provide the software as a service (SaaS).

Competitors becoming clients

The transportation company has successfully opened a new revenue stream with the new platform. The interest from other companies has been growing constantly, with sales and subscriptions on the rise.

It has also enabled issues tracking and risk mitigation, bringing a new level of visibility and transparency across the entire transport activity. Tracking what delivery is out of plan, the reason for the delay and estimated time of arrival (ETA) are now just one click away for any stakeholder involved in the transport cycle.
Truck drivers, dispatchers, customers, and management are all notified in real-time and aligned on the transport status.

Using automation has significantly reduced the time needed for monitoring transports and has allowed efforts to be shifted towards other value-adding activities such as improving customer experience and growing sales.

  • European transport company transforms competition into clients with new monitoring platform
    European transport company transforms competition into clients with new monitoring platform 5.12 MB Download

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