“Qargo offers the visibility, accuracy, flexibility, data integrity, compliance, and agility Uniserve needs.”
It’s a telling sign that when a business solution is failing to deliver, you start looking for alternatives – even without being asked by management.
That’s what happened to Transport Solutions Domain Lead, Matt Dweh, at global logistics and trade management giant Uniserve. A £1.6 billion business with 89 group companies, it provides shipping, air and road freight services, as well as end-to-end warehousing and logistics solutions to clients across the world. And that means serious logistical challenges day in, day out – especially within the Uniserve’s road freight division.
However, Matt was spending a great deal of time supporting the internal teams and the challenges they faced on a daily basis with the current transport systems. In fact, the gaps in functionality had reached a breaking point: “I had already started looking at alternate solutions before I was even asked because of the ongoing negative experience and frustration,” recalls Matt.
Fresh start
During Matt’s time conducting his ‘extracurricular’ research, he discovered Qargo and was impressed with its capabilities and UI. Then, once Uniserve’s newly appointed Transport Operations Director Gordon McCormick had arrived, the green light was given to officially source a replacement for Uniserve’s existing transport systems.
“Arranging logistics is like putting together a 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle each and every day,” explains Gordon, “and we needed a solution that would make this puzzle-solving process quicker, slicker and more cost effective. Plus have a solution that actually worked.” Matt immediately recommended they take a closer look at Qargo as a replacement alongside other potential TMS providers as part of a comprehensive vetting process.
Stand out
Subsequently, Matt arranged to speak with over 10 providers – but they only served to deepen his interest in Qargo: “All the providers wanted to arrange Teams Meetings,” Matt explains. “But Qargo stood out by requesting a face-to-face meeting immediately. And that’s important because you can judge and read people far better in real life.”
But the real question was – would Gordon find the solution as convincing? “Matt had told me about his initial meeting with Qargo,” says Gordon, “so we agreed to meet at the CV Show where Qargo had a stand. I was blown away by the product and critically, by the people, too.”
Real deal
Gordon was won over by a tech demo at a subsequent meeting. “It was the advancements the team had made to the solution since we’d last met that showed Qargo was the real deal, and not yet another case of the Emperor’s new clothes,” he recalls.
Just as importantly, as an industry veteran, Gordon is well-used to presentations being dressed up as ‘live demos’ when, in reality, they simply follow a highly-scripted process. “Again, Qargo was different,” says Gordon. “I was throwing out different scenarios and the Qargo team was setting them up and creating results on the fly. That told me the system could deliver what Qargo said it could.”
“The confidence of the Qargo team in its system was sky high – and after seeing the demos, I could understand why.”
Gordon McCormick, Transport Operations Director
Winning over
However, there were some natural reservations: “Some were asking if we should proceed as Qargo was a relatively new business. What is its longevity? How risky is this?,” recalls Gordon. Both he and Matt though could see how quickly other companies were being onboarded at Qargo. This left Gordon concerned that if they rejected Qargo, they risked sitting down in a year’s time and thinking: “We really should have gone with them.”
To cement support for Qargo, Matt arranged demos across the business. He recalls, “whenever we put anyone in front of the system, they loved it and bought into it there and then.” Gordon had similar success with a senior director at one of Uniserve’s group businesses who was on the cusp of signing with another provider.
“I drove 200 miles to see him and urge him to check out Qargo,” says Gordon. “Once he had seen the system with a number of his team, it made them seriously reconsider their options, and Qargo was subsequently adopted.”
“Having a good product behind me just makes my life so much easier. I know from personal experience there’s nothing worse than having a product that is not fit for purpose.”
Matt Dweh, Transport Leads Solution
Moving forward
Fast forward to today and Uniserve’s road freight operations are currently being onboarded. “It’s all good,” says Matt. “I’ve always got somebody to speak to, and I feel supported by Qargo as we go through an intense period of testing.”
Matt is especially pleased with Qargo’s deep level of integration, which allows the many different systems used by Uniserve’s clients to be successfully integrated using Qargo’s powerful APIs. He’s also been won over by the solution’s OCR reader: “Qargo can read a PDF or an email instantly. It’s as simple as dragging and dropping the file into the system, and all the key information is extracted automatically.”
The only issue? Gordon does believe Qargo needs to improve its project management offering. “We can of course help during this rollout – but it’s something Qargo needs to bear in mind when it starts targeting even bigger, more complex customers than us.”
Future potential
That said, Gordon remains very happy with Qargo. Not only for the capabilities it will unlock for Uniserve’s road freight operations – but its potential impact on the company’s entire infrastructure.
“We believe Qargo can deliver other opportunities for us,” explains Gordon. “In the long term, we want to explore ways to capture all kinds of transport transactional data with the system. It will give us ultimate visibility so we can analyse and improve our offering to our customers even further.”
He also believes the business model offered by Qargo is a genuine game-changer. Unlike traditional providers, Qargo’s fees are based solely on Uniserve’s revenue turnover. Gordon explains: “It’s really simple – the more we grow our revenue via the product, the more Qargo benefits because its pay is linked to this increase in revenue. In other words, it’s a win-win scenario for both Uniserve and Qargo.”
“My big hope? If Qargo and Uniserve can create the level of visibility for our customers that consumers currently enjoy from the likes of DPD, it will be revolutionary for the transport industry.”
Gordon McCormick, Transport Operations Director
We’ll provide an update on Uniserve’s Qargo solution going live later this year.
