Client€3B Global Speciality Chemicals Company
SprintA 10 week sprint, second phase
Fieldwork5 platforms benchmarked · 6 dimensions scored · 4 functions consulted
Digital and AI
The platform was never the constraint
A first phase had established that the client could not see its goods in transit and had pre-identified the platforms that might fix it. This phase benchmarked five of them properly. The ranking that came out was not decided by features, because on features they are broadly the same. It was decided by how many of the client own carriers each platform could actually reach, and the best answer was 60 per cent.
5
Real time visibility platforms benchmarked
60%
Best road carrier coverage against the client own carrier list
7%
Worst road carrier coverage found
1.5
Years the team expected implementation to take
A note on sourcing. Every figure here comes from a SprintlyWorks client engagement. Clients are described, never named. Where a figure is identified, modelled or indicative rather than banked, the line says so.
01
A benchmark built on the client own carrier list
Scope was road and maritime across two regions, covering a stated annual load of 150,000 road deliveries and 3.3 million tonnes, plus 9,000 maritime shipments and 220,000 tonnes.
The method ran in three phases. Requirements gathered through interviews across four internal functions, then vendor demonstrations and questionnaires, then a scored benchmark against six dimensions. Cost was deliberately left out of the scoring, because every vendor refused to give a real number before a workshop and the estimates on the table were acknowledged to be unreliable.
The important design choice was to measure coverage against the client actual carrier list rather than against a vendor claim of network size. That is what turned a features comparison into a decision.
02
The coverage numbers were the finding
On road, the best platform reached 60 per cent of the client carriers. The next best reached 15 per cent, then 10, then 10, then 7. On maritime the picture reversed, with coverage running from 100 per cent down to 20.
Even where coverage exists, a data sharing agreement has to be negotiated carrier by carrier before anything flows. Coverage is a starting position, not a connection.
Two vendors would not name which carriers they covered, and one declined to disclose any detail beyond a single blended figure. That refusal is itself a data point about what a stated coverage percentage is worth.
Coverage
How much of the carrier base each platform could actually reach
Measured against the client own list of highest volume carriers. Vendors anonymised. Percentages are vendor stated, and two of the five would not name which carriers they were counting.
| Platform | Road coverage | Maritime coverage | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Platform A | 60% | 100% | 1 |
| Platform B | 10% | 88% | 2 |
| Platform C | 7% | 65% | 3 |
| Platform D | 15% | 20% | 4 equal |
| Platform E | 10% blended, no detail given | 10% blended, no detail given | 4 equal |
How to read this → Platform C had the most sophisticated arrival time prediction in the study and finished third, because it could reach seven per cent of the trucks.
SprintlyWorks analysis
03
On features they are nearly interchangeable
All five support a control tower view and telematics connections. Real time information for full and part truckloads is market standard. Container tracking is milestone based for every one of them, sourced from port and ocean carrier interfaces, and vessel tracking is real time for four of the five.
Two genuine differentiators emerged and neither is what a demonstration leads with. One platform was the only one able to show real time visibility for cross dock shipments, which are hard because consolidation and deconsolidation are difficult to follow and courier services are unwilling to share live data. Another was the only one offering the full module set beyond tracking, covering analytics, execution, billing and sourcing, which makes it a life cycle platform rather than a tracking one.
Nobody could predict strikes, which had been on the requirement list. The finding was recorded as an unanswered issue rather than quietly dropped.
04
Cost and timeline were the least reliable numbers in the study
Annual subscription estimates across the five ran from roughly 100,000 to 394,000 euros, with implementation quotes between 60,000 and 200,000 where they were given at all. Two vendors gave no implementation figure. One would additionally charge carriers that lacked a tracking interface, at 890 euros a year each.
Every one of those figures carried an explicit warning in the source material that they are ballpark only and that no vendor would discuss real pricing before a workshop. They are reproduced here without vendor names for the same reason.
Timelines ranged from four months to eighteen. The team own expectation, written down rather than implied, was that implementation should be expected to take about a year and a half.
05
The real bottleneck sits below the platform
Carriers without a tracking device cannot be tracked whatever the platform. Carriers that have one often fear the data being used against them in the next tender. Their subcontractors are frequently unwilling to share anything live. The chain of persuasion runs through the client, not through the vendor.
Two mitigations were recommended for that specifically. Put real time capability into future transport tendering as a criterion, and lead the conversation with the mutual benefit, such as reduced waiting time at warehouses, rather than with the demand.
A third complication was outside the client control entirely. The logistics partner was already selecting platforms of its own in two regions, on its own timetable, and regards one of the candidate vendors as a competitor.
06
What the client was left holding
A ranked benchmark of five platforms against a weighted model built from the client own priorities, with cost excluded and the reason stated. Coverage measured against the real carrier list rather than a vendor claim. And an explicit instruction that the strategic choice should govern the decision rather than the score.
Two strategic questions were put back rather than answered: one global partner or several regional ones, and pure tracking or a platform that will later carry tendering and billing too. Both change the answer, and neither is a consultant decision.
There is no measured result in this work. No platform was bought, nothing was implemented, and no visibility improved during the engagement. What it produced was a shortlist of two to negotiate with, and the knowledge that the constraint was never going to be the software.
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