Background
One of the largest private-label lubricant distributors in North America faced challenges scaling its internal fleet to match its rapid, exponential market growth.
Challenge
- The distributor’s internal fleet and limited external carrier network could not provide adequate capacity for their rapid growth and increased demand, causing delayed deliveries to customers.
- Managing shipments for its internal fleet and its external carrier network required increased time, effort, and resources.
- The distributor recognized the need for a truck-to-rail network conversion but lacked the support and experience to significantly change its current transportation network.
- The distributor did not have a partnership with a reliable logistics services provider that could secure access to qualified carriers within the bulk tanker network.
Solution
KAG Logistics addressed these challenges and protected the customer’s market share by:
- Providing a single point of contact for their spot/expedited transactional shipments, which eliminated the need to maintain and manage multiple carrier contacts, communications, and processes. This solution freed significant time for the distributor to focus on their core business.
- Implementing a Dedicated Carrier solution based on a holistic view of the customer’s entire transportation network.
- Providing transportation solutions across multiple modes while supporting high service standards, maintaining a single point of contact, and ensuring costs are market-reflective.
- Initially, KAG Logistics managed the distributor’s bulk liquid shipments only. Over time, rail shipments, and dry van shipments were consolidated under KAG Logistics’ management sphere. As the distributor grew, KAG Logistics was able to scale with them, providing streamlined transportation services over multiple modes and ensuring the distributor’s customers were not impacted.
Results/Benefits/Key Takeaways
- The distributor’s customer commitments were met, protecting their market share.
- With confidence in their partnership with KAG Logistics, the distributor continued to gain market share through their sales force, capitalizing on KAG Logistics’ ability to scale quickly and remain cost-efficient.
- KAG Logistics provided the distributor with an outsourced solution to manage their internal railcar transloading fleet, aligning their internal strategy to convert traditional truck routes to rail when appropriate.
