Supporting Aggressive Growth with Core Carrier Service
Overview
“SDB&D, Inc.”* is a leading soft drink bottler and distributor with operations serving 30 million consumers spanning 13 states in the western U.S. The leadership team at SDB&D has charted an aggressive growth plan that calls for doubling their current sales revenue over the next three years. Ensuring that SDB&D is partnered with the right transportation and logistics providers is key to successfully executing their growth strategy.
Challenges & Needs
As part of their strategic plan, SDB&D conducted an evaluation of its existing core carrier group with the intention of identifying an optimal ‘core carrier’ profile for its future network and strategic goals. In its analysis, SDB&D learned that in its current network, approximately 75 brokers and carriers were receiving freight and many of these providers were accepting less than 1% of the total freight and/or measuring well below acceptable levels in the areas of cost, performance and visibility. In its current state, the network was not aligned to support the new corporate strategic growth initiatives.
Following the evaluation, the SDB&D leadership team sought to identify core carriers that were aligned with their new strategic goals. SDB&D’s new core carrier strategy placed an emphasis on identifying carriers that were willing to enter into long-term partnerships, embrace performance and technology and support the SDB&D strategic plan for growth.
“They have a well-established carrier base and they price them well.”
Solutions
SDB&D ultimately identified 15 core carriers, including Sheer Logistics. As a core carrier, the Sheer team engaged with the SDB&D team to pilot Truce, a platform that provides performance metrics and margin transparency to build shipper/carrier relationships. Truce also provides SDB&D visibility to truck assignments 48 hours in advance of pickups, which allows SDB&D to evaluate the relative strength of a carrier’s network and relationships. While not a requirement for core carriers, the Sheer team participated in the pilot program in order to provide SDB&D the transparency and partnership they were looking for in a core carrier.
“It’s obvious they are engaged and want to be a long-term partner.”
Results
In contrast to some of the low-volume carriers that SDB&D once utilized, Sheer now hauls between 350-600 truckloads per month and between 50-100 tank moves per month. As a core carrier for SDB&D, Sheer is able to better control costs and deliver exceptional service.
Recent KPIs include:
AT A GLANCE
Industry
Soft Drink Bottler & Distributor
Modes
FTL Van
FTL Temp-Controlled
Annual Revenue
$3B
Services Provided
- FTL Brokerage
*The company name has been anonymized for the purposes of this case study.
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