“The right solution at the right price made Qargo the best choice.”
Large-scale, complex delivery operations need meticulous logistical planning and management whether it’s optimising driver routing or simplifying customer invoicing processes.
It’s a fact that freight company Joda Freight knows all too well as it operates a fleet of over 50 vehicles as well as three warehouses, delivering trusted transport services to major clients across the UK and Europe. However, the company realised its operations were being negatively impacted by an over-reliance on outdated technology to drive its core operations.
The solution? To hire IT specialist Luke Ryan as its warehouse and systems manager, charging him with moving Joda Freight away from an inefficient on-premise IT approach and into the cloud.
Uphill struggle
The root cause of the company’s issues became clear to Luke almost immediately: “Joda Freight was still using a transport solution built in the 1980s,” he recalls. Further investigation revealed challenges on every front – from an archaic IT infrastructure to an invoicing process that required significant levels of manual work.
“Such unoptimised processes were having a real impact,” explains Luke. “The more inefficient your operations are, the more expensive they are, and the less profit you make. It really is that simple.”
Out with the old
Luke quickly ascertained at the heart of the company’s IT issues was Joda Freight’s inefficient data management. All data was hosted within a SQL database, an outmoded system that required a constant stream of adds-ons to deliver modern functionality. This approach had created an unreliable monolithic system that suffered from frequent and costly outages.
Because of Luke’s analysis, it was decided the SQL solution was no longer fit for purpose. Instead, an entirely new approach was required to meet Joda Freight’s complex needs. Luke began liaising with potential providers to identify the right transport management solution to not only resolve but transcend the company’s data issues entirely.
“It was during this time that I got a LinkedIn message out of the blue from Qargo,” recalls Luke. “They said that they had the ideal system and would I like to take a look?”.
Winning demo
A demo meeting was arranged where Qargo revealed how it could transform Joda Freight’s operations including massively streamlining the ordering process: “Qargo’s solution could automatically pull out the key order information from a client’s email or PDF so there was no manual typing required,” says Luke. “As part of the demo, I did a small exercise, taking one of our most complicated types of order, which typically takes 15 minutes to process on our existing system. Using Qargo, it only took two.”
Luke and the management team were also won over by Qargo’s deep sector knowledge with the team able to offer solutions then and there to the many issues impacting on the company’s performance. By the end of the demo session, Luke and Joda Freight’s management decided to move forward with Qargo.
“Not only does Qargo offer great efficiency gains – but it also has the right modern look and feel.”
Systems transformed
After negotiating the contract and drawing up a roadmap for delivery, Qargo was integrated into Joda Freight’s IT infrastructure and crucially, with the company’s existing modern tracking and telematics solution. “It was actually a seamless experience,” recalls Luke. “When the service went live, nobody from Qargo was needed on site because it just worked.”
The result has been transformative for Joda Freight’s operations. Efficiency has been boosted day-to-day by a hugely improved ‘diary view’. The previous Excel-based offering listed an ‘early morning through late night’ overview of driver journeys for each day, their planned load trips, and much more. To ensure continual accuracy, the solution required intensive manual updating by planners if and when any circumstances changed.
However, Qargo enables any changes to be made immediately with all planners updated in seconds without the need for phone calls or emails. “Best of all, the functionality can be securely accessed anywhere and on any device,” says Luke.
At a glance
The new system has also been a boon for Joda Freight’s customers. They can now see all pertinent information via a new customer portal – from orders and costs down to the progress of individual loads in transit. In turn, it means the customer services department also has more time to focus on any requests or emerging issues that require actual human intervention, not repetitive busywork.
As a Qargo customer, Joda Freight’s move into the cloud has delivered wholesale systemic change: “We’ve become very streamlined and efficient,” says Luke. “Crucially, if any issue should arise, the Qargo team is always there to help and support us, plus they manage the day-to-day running of the platform such as server updates.”
Ultimately, deploying Qargo means Joda Freight can now focus on delivering the best possible service to its clients – with its IT infrastructure working for the company, instead of against it. That represents a win-win for every stakeholder whether they work at Joda Freight or are a customer expecting the best possible service from their transport provider.
“We have never received such a high level of service from any other transport management solution provider.”
