The Intersection Between Strategy & Solutioning: Transforming Logistic

About The Project

Reindeer Logistics, known for its expertise in automotive relocations and freight transportation, brought a unique challenge to solve. Their new Fleet program was growing faster than expected and quickly reaching the limits of what their legacy system could accommodate. The overflow had to be managed by their fleet team members, dramatically increasing manual input and the risk of errors hindering growth.

These circumstances, coupled with the desire to dramatically level up their organizational processes, efficiency, accuracy, scalability, communication, and oversight capabilities, meant that a standard app development approach would not suffice.

With this in mind, our specialized product and strategy teams designed an approach to not only cure the immediate pain points, but also provide the transformative features that could empower this group to attain their wildest goals.

Reindeer Auto’s Personalizable User Dashboard screen showing documents ready to be edited and those that need to be requested. — Personalizable User Dashboards enable dynamic tracking and management of orders while facilitating seamless handoffs between team members.

Application Highlights

Centralized fleet orders, fulfillment, and shipping documents from multiple systems into one application.
Bulk orders are created, categorized, and assigned in seconds.
Automated billing for vehicles in ongoing storage.
Unbooked routes post to carrier boards to be filled.
System-generated customer reports and assembly of shipping documents, formatted for rapid intake by partner systems.
Reclaims lost revenue from previously untracked sales.
Escalates orders requiring attention to the relevant team members.
Integrated payment & claims management modules.
Automated order transitions.

Reindeer Auto’s Order Route Tab showing a vehicle mid-journey between a long haul and storage before reaching the delivery destination. — The Route tab is a centralized place for operations team members to plan and manage the movement and storage of vehicles as they go from pickup to delivery. Average lane prices help them to zero-in on fair market pricing.

The Challenges

Existing software could not keep up with fleet growth, leading to manual work and errors.
Business was still defining and refining processes to fully manage the Fleet program.
Reindeer is stacked with fleet and logistics experts but lacks in-house product development expertise & horsepower.
Increased transparency, documentation, SLAs, and reporting needs for the fleet program.
Desire to balance speed-to-market with feature richness and customization.
Non-disruptive transition from the legacy system to the new one.

Reindeer Auto’s Order Accounting Tab showing a typical set of payables and receivable charges which were automatically created as hauls, storages, and services were completed. These are categorized automatically to fit customer preferences. — The Accounting tab lists the charges and payments associated with every completed haul, storage, or service in the order’s lifecycle. The line items are automatically created and categorized according to the customer's preferences for frictionless processing. Additionally, shown here, the system flags rows that need an accounting team member’s attention.

The Solutions

Development of a cloud-based system with scalable architecture and fleet-specific features.
Collaboration between Reindeer and TechFabric teams to understand business needs and to innovate/address them.
Collaborated with reindeer’s departmental specialists to define and invent workflows, accelerated by the new OMS application.
Creation of new modules for document management, receivables, SLAs, reporting, and more.
Drawing on the skills of TechFabric product, design, and development teams to solve problems effectively while planning for long-term success.
Intuitive design with live demos and knowledge transfer sessions for easy adoption and a knowledge base for long-term reference.

eindeer Auto’s Add New Services modal showing how users can add a service, find a nearby provider, and provision to and from transports to the service location. — The services tab enables Reindeer’s Managed Services team to quickly provision services, find a nearby provider, determine pricing, and easily arrange for the vehicles to be moved.

The Benefits

Significant reduction of manual work and errors, allowing teams to focus on high-value tasks.
Enabled the fleet team to keep focused growing fleet business while the new system was being made. Meanwhile, valuable feature enhancements and workflow improvements were identified and invented.
Reduced errors, inconsistencies, and confusion leading to faster execution and reduced costs.
Increased customer trust and volume resulting from improved transparency and confidence.
Rapid delivery of powerful features enhances Reindeer’s competitive advantage.
Reduced confusion during launch and future training costs.\

Reindeer Auto’s Required Docs tab automatically lists the outstanding required documents associated with each fleet haul, storage, or service according to business rules and customer preferences. As users add matching documents the corresponding placeholder is marked as completed. — The Required Docs tab houses a dynamic checklist of the missing paperwork for each completed haul, storage, and service. The types of documents are assembled from Reindeer’s minimum standards and customer preferences. When matching files are uploaded, the list automatically marks them as completed.

Project Success Factors

Going beyond discovery – Continuously gaining a deeper understanding of the greater business service landscape and industry nuances. To maximize success from the first iteration, it is necessary to pull on every loose process thread to understand the why behind the what, not stopping with immediate pain points and blockers…looking well below the surface. ‍
Intensive User Feedback - With each step forward in development, holding user feedback sessions and regular test drives with internal groups was a top priority. This highly inclusive approach helps us target and tighten features, course-correct quickly, and land in the innovation “sweet spot” even from the initial MVP release. ‍
Informed, Effective & Elegant Solutioning – Combining multiple layers of understanding we gained during discovery, we apply these learnings to fashion features that lead processes rather than just responding to them. This gives the business an edge both in the marketplace and with internal operations (new user onboarding, training, etc.)

Now, Reindeer has a system that streamlines their operations, reduces errors, amplifies the impact of their experts, and puts them in the fast lane for fleet success.

Reindeer Auto’s Note Tab showing how users can add and categorize notes and, in addition to that, notify other internal and external team members. — Not only can users add notes on the Notes Tab, but they can also quickly categorize and notify internal and external stakeholders to keep everyone in the know. Special Instructions are automatically included in carrier agreements.

Conclusion

This solution highlights the exponential success that comes when we match business specialists with product strategy and technology experts. Going beyond needs and pain points to understand the intricacies of the business and industry, combined with thoughtful and innovative solutions, can increase value from day one while meeting longer-term strategic goals and priorities.

The partnership between Reindeer and TechFabric is a great example of how the right strategy and approach can truly propel a business forward. The new OMS has not only streamlined Reindeer’s fleet operations but also positioned the company to adapt to future market demands with ease. The new cloud-based system streamlines operations, reduces errors and allows fleet experts to focus on high-value tasks, giving Reindeer a true competitive edge on their mission to provide the real personalized service they are known for.

As Reindeer continues to grow and evolve, the foundation laid by this project ensures that their logistics operations remain robust, efficient, and responsive, enabling them to deliver exceptional service to their customers while “future-proofing” the business for what lies ahead.

Reindeer Auto’s Payment Module with sections for invoice details, payment calculator, and payment type sections. A mismatched dollar amount is highlighted in red, helping users correct discrepancies. — The Payments Module allows users to quickly process payments to carriers or service providers. It also automatically flags payments with mismatched dollar amounts, outstanding documents, and active claims.

The Intersection of Strategy & Solutioning: Transforming Reindeer Auto’s Logistics OMS