Freight Matching Tool

Introduction

Challenge: 

The private fleet team has been challenged to push sales margin over $1,000,000 per month and sales volume over 300 loads per day by year's end. A specialized freight sales team (private fleet) at the logistics company I worked at was looking for a way to boost their daily load booking volumes leveraging their massive fleets' preferred lanes (routes).

Objective:

The project aimed to deliver a sophisticated tool that would empower the sales team to swiftly identify and capitalize on loads matching with carriers' preferred lanes. By facilitating a more strategic and efficient booking process, the tool was designed to enhance sales revenue, margin, and volume, driving the company's growth beyond its annual targets.

Solution

Automated Match Delivery Tool:

Using custom T-SQL to analyze carrier preferred lanes (routes) and compare to available loads I built a SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) report that ran automatically at 6am and 12pm to deliver matches to sales' reps inboxes using a data-driven subscription. Sales reps could run the report as needed throughout the day as well for real time matches from the pool of over 5,000 new daily loads.

Interactive Load Match Map:

To achieve the goal of giving visibility into available loads and the matches with different carriers to the sales reps I created a visual representation of the lanes within the US of each load that matches preferred lanes based on a chosen radius filter selectable by the user. This helps better inform reps of the different routes that are available as a reference for when they call the carrier for booking a load with a driver.

Impact

Sales Performance:

The introduction of the automated tool led to a measurable uptick in sales margin and load booking volume. Within six months, monthly sales margin saw an increment of $200,000, and daily loads moved increased by 50, surpassing the initial targets set by the end of the year.

Operational Efficiency:

The efficiency of the sales process improved dramatically, with sales reps now able to quickly secure bookings that were most profitable and aligned with carrier preferences.

Architecture

Dashboard

The Load Matching Dashboard (freight matching tool) offers an interactive map for viewing active loads that match origins and destinations designated by carriers managed by different sales reps. The tool was dedicated to a 30 person private fleet team and drastically improved the ability of sales reps to book high volume of daily loads with their carriers. Within 6 months of use monthly sales margin increased by $200,000 to over $1 million and daily loads moved increased by 50 to over 300.

SSRS Report

The SSRS (Power BI Paginated) report I created allowed us to send matches directly to sales reps on a scheduled basis twice a day via an automated, data-driven subscription sent to their email to give them prompts for booking new loads that matched with their carrier network.

The Bottom Line:

The Freight Matching Tool was a game-changer for the company's private fleet team. By leveraging technology to enhance decision-making and optimize carrier-load matching, the tool not only met but exceeded financial goals, cementing the company's competitive edge in the logistics market.