Industrial & Manufacturing
›
Transportation & Logistics
›
3PL & Carrier Networks
Logistics Partner Networks
Multi-party coordination across carriers, warehouses, and supply chains where SLAs, compliance, and handoffs drive outcomes.
Example organizations in this space:
C.H. Robinson
Echo Global
Coyote Logistics
Flexport
This interactive experience is the shipped product itself — the same application code customers run in production, mounted read-only in your browser over a real sample journey. Not a video, not a mockup: because the demo and the product are one codebase, it can never drift from the real thing.
Inside this journey
-
Pre-Sales
Qualify and diagnose before investing in a full evaluation cycle.
-
Qualification
Confirm budget range, decision authority, timeline, and high-level trade-lane priorities before a full discovery.
Qualification Questions
Trade-lane priorities and shipment volume
- Which trade lanes are highest priority for this project?
- Roughly how many shipments or containers do you move across all modes per month?
Integration and carrier onboarding readiness
- Which internal systems would need to integrate with the platform?
- Do you expect new carrier or forwarder onboarding (API credentials, contracts, testing) will be required for your priority lanes?
- If there are integration or onboarding constraints (security approvals, sample data availability, restricted carriers), please list them briefly.
Budget, decision authority, and timing
- Is there an allocated budget range for platform fees plus implementation in the next 12 months?
- Who will sign the agreement and which roles will influence the decision?
- What is your target go-live window for an initial pilot or first lanes?
-
Stakeholder & Trade-Lane Discovery
Map stakeholders, current processes, key trade lanes, visibility gaps, and measurable success signals.
Discovery Questions
Why this evaluation started
- To get started, briefly describe the trigger that led your team to evaluate a managed logistics platform now.
- Roughly how many shipments do you move across ocean, air, and truck combined each month?
- Which trade lanes represent at least 60% of your volume? List ports, corridors, or origins and destinations.
- When was the last time a visibility failure caused customer-facing service disruption, and what happened?
- If there were one operational fact that would stop this evaluation immediately, what would it be?
Where your shipments break most often
- Which single trade lane or touchpoint creates the most unplanned cost or delay today?
- Give a recent example of that failure, including how frequently it happens and any direct financial impact you tracked.
- How often do exceptions in that lane require manual intervention from your operations team?
- Who on your team is first alerted when those exceptions occur, and how do they typically escalate them?
- If this failure continued at the same rate after a platform rollout, would you consider the deployment unsuccessful?
Who's accountable and who will move the work
- Who in your organization holds final authority to approve changes to carrier or forwarder relationships?
- List the cross functional stakeholders we should involve for decisions, including procurement, operations, legal, IT, and finance.
- Describe how your procurement team evaluates and selects carriers and forwarders today, then choose the criteria that apply.
- How many people would need to be trained to hand over day to day operations to the platform?
- Is there an executive sponsor who can sign for budget and remove cross functional blockers within the next 30 days?
The systems and data that must bend for this to work
- If your ERP, order management, or TMS cannot provide shipment level data via an API, would that prevent a go live within your target window?
- Which of these systems are in scope for integration, pick all that apply.
- Who owns API access and credentials for those systems, and can a sandbox or test credentials be provided within 4 weeks?
- Do you currently have sample data and a named point of contact able to provide it for testing?
- Rate the cleanliness of your shipment identifiers and PO to shipment mapping in source systems.
- Which technical blocker, if unresolved, would cause you to pause implementation?
How you buy freight and what drives your costs
- How often does a last minute rate or routing change materially change your landed cost per shipment?
- Which purchasing model do you use today for your primary lanes?
- Tell me about the reconciliation process for freight invoices and who resolves chargebacks or disputed items.
- What KPIs do you use to judge carrier performance and freight spend efficiency?
- If a pilot cut your average detention and demurrage by half in the tested lanes, what would be the fastest path to scale that result company wide?
The other paths you are weighing
- Which alternative on your table would be easiest for your team to stick with, and why?
- Which external vendors or in house options are you actively evaluating, select all that apply.
- What would need to be true about your current approach for you to stay with it instead of changing to a platform model?
- Has anyone proposed solving this internally, and if so what headcount and timeline were suggested for an internal build?
- Which single competing choice, if selected, would end this opportunity for us?
What will make this project succeed or fail fast
- If a pilot proves the visibility and cost targets you need, what would stop you from moving to full deployment that week?
- List the measurable success signals that must be validated during pilot, include target percentages or dollar reductions where possible.
- What is your target timeline from pilot start to full roll out?
- Who must sign commercial and legal terms to proceed to a pilot, and how long is that review process typically?
- Are there regulatory, customs, or compliance approvals that could block go live in key countries?
- If budget approval were granted today at the expected level, how quickly could your team commit to a pilot start date?
-
-
Solution Experience
Walk through how the platform delivers end-to-end milestone visibility, booking/document automation, and consolidated procurement in your real trade scenarios.
Solution Experience
- Solution Experience Session
- Confirm the current state and its cost to your team
- You confirm the demonstrated workflow eliminates the manual rework and visibility gaps you described.
- Run the guided sample on the provided trade-lane shipments and deliver a validation report showing SLA improvements and exception reduction.
- Walk a live trade-lane scenario for milestone visibility
- You confirm the booking and document automation covers the required tasks for the sample trade lanes.
- Provide two representative shipments with associated booking and rate documents for the pilot.
- Show booking and document automation on the sample shipment
- List the three stakeholders who will evaluate the pilot outcomes and their decision timelines.
- You agree on the specific evidence, sample shipments, and timeline needed to start a pilot.
- Prepare a pilot plan with success signals, timeline, and required data fields, and share before the follow-up session.
- Demonstrate consolidated procurement and cost reconciliation
- Validate fit with a direct question
- Confirm next evidence and pilot criteria
- Solution Experience Session
- Solution Experience Deck
- Solution Experience Brief
- meeting
- slides
- document
-
Solution Scope
Define trade-lane coverage, carrier/forwarder onboarding, integration boundaries, service modules, and acceptance criteria.
Scope Configuration
- Onboard Trade Lanes and Routing
- Onboard Carriers and Forwarders
- Import Carrier Rates and Contracts
- Integrate ERP and Order Management
- Enable Booking and Documentation Automation
- Activate Real-time Milestone Visibility
- Configure Exception Alerting and Escalation
- Automate Customs Filing and Brokerage Handoffs
- Orchestrate Drayage and Intermodal Execution
- Consolidate Invoices and Freight Cost Allocation
- Deploy Freight Spend Analytics and Benchmarks
- Migrate Historical Shipment Records
- Enable EDI/API Carrier Integrations
- Train Operations and Procurement Users
Scope Questions
Onboard Trade Lanes and Routing
- How many active trade lanes (port pair + mode) do you plan to onboard at go-live?
- Which specific port pairs and origin/destination airport codes should be included in initial coverage?
- Provide the primary weekly sailings or flight frequency requirement for each lane (e.g., weekly vessel voyages per lane, daily flights).
- List the most common shipment profiles on these lanes by container type and size (e.g., 40' high-cube, 20' dry, 45', 40' refrigerated).
- Specify any preferred routings, transshipment ports, or banned transload points for compliance or commercial reasons.
- What are the acceptance criteria for trade-lane scope (for example: minimum X lanes live, sample shipments processed end-to-end, and visibility >=95%)?
Onboard Carriers and Forwarders
- Which carrier and freight forwarder partners do you require onboarded for the initial lanes (by SCAC or forwarder code if available)?
- Do any carriers require contract review or commercial onboarding prior to electronic connectivity?
- Are there mandatory carrier KPIs or SLA thresholds (e.g., on-time departure, milestone update latency) we must capture during onboarding?
- Who in your operations or procurement team will be the primary contact for carrier credentialing and test coordination?
- List any carrier-specific documents required for onboarding (e.g., Master Service Agreement, bank details, proof of insurance, number of contracted voyages).
- Are there carriers on key lanes where electronic booking is not permitted and manual booking exceptions must be handled?
Import Carrier Rates and Contracts
- Which rate formats do your carriers provide today (e.g., spreadsheet tariff, PDF contract, carrier portal export, rate file)?
- Specify the rate elements that must be captured (e.g., base ocean rate per TEU, THC, port fees, BAF/CAF, currency, validity dates).
- Do you need support for multi-origin or multi-destination consolidated pricing rules (e.g., LCL consolidation logic)?
- Provide the expected monthly volume of rate lines to import and how often rates are refreshed (daily, weekly, monthly).
- Are there contract governance rules to enforce at quoting (e.g., minimum margin thresholds, approved carriers per lane)?
- Do you require the platform to validate rate math and flag discrepancies versus historical invoice-backed rates?
Integrate ERP and Order Management
- Which ERP or order management systems must be integrated at go-live (provide system name and type, e.g., ERP: SAP S/4HANA, Order Management: OMS)?
- Specify the integration surface required: push PO/booking data, pull order status, push freight cost accruals, or full invoice reconciliation.
- Which field mappings are critical to preserve between systems (e.g., PO number, customer code, SKU/HS code, incoterm, delivery location code)?
- What is the required transaction SLA for order-to-booking updates (e.g., <5 minutes, <1 hour, batch daily)?
- Who is responsible for providing API credentials, test sandboxes, and sample payloads from your ERP/OMS?
- What are the go-live acceptance criteria for ERP/order integration (for example: X% of POs synced without error, successful end-to-end booking for sample orders)?
Enable Booking and Documentation Automation
- Which booking documents must be automated at go-live (e.g., booking confirmation, House Bill of Lading, Master Bill of Lading, airway bill, packing list)?
- Do you require automatic generation of shipping instructions from the order profile (including HS codes and commodity descriptions)?
- Which document delivery channels should be supported (email PDF, SFTP drop, API push to partner, EDI 210 invoice)?
- Specify any legal or regulatory fields that must appear on bills of lading or commercial invoices for your lanes (e.g., license numbers, consignee tax ID, export license).
- Are there templating or localization requirements for document languages, currency formatting, or measurement units (imperial vs metric)?
- Which exceptions in booking flow must trigger manual review (e.g., hazardous cargo, weight/volume mismatch, carrier capacity shortfalls)?
Activate Real-time Milestone Visibility
- Which milestones are required for visibility on each lane (e.g., departure, arrival, container gate-in, container gate-out, laden/on-carrier, discharge)?
- Provide the expected providers of milestone events (carrier EDI, forwarder portal, terminal API, GPS telematics) and any known gaps.
- Which carrier milestone message types do you require support for (Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) or API) such as EDI 214 (Transportation Carrier Shipment Status Message) or carrier APIs?
- What visibility accuracy threshold do you require for go-live (for example: percentage of shipments with at least these milestones updated within expected window)?
- How should vessel/voyage and container number mismatches be reconciled (automatic heuristic match, manual review, or both)?
- Are there specific port terminal APIs or appointment systems we must integrate with for milestone capture (provide terminal names and API details if available)?
Configure Exception Alerting and Escalation
- Which exception types should generate alerts (e.g., missed ETA, demurrage trigger, customs hold, booking cancellation, temperature deviation)?
- Who should receive first-level alerts and who are the escalation contacts for critical exceptions?
- Specify the SLA for alert acknowledgment and resolution per exception type (e.g., acknowledge within 30 minutes, resolve within 8 hours).
- Do you want alert routing rules based on trade lane, customer account, or commodity type?
- Describe the preferred notification channels for exceptions (email, SMS, in-platform task, webhook to incident system).
- Are automated remediation workflows required for certain exceptions (for example automatically rebook on next sailing when container rolled)?
Automate Customs Filing and Brokerage Handoffs
- Which countries and customs regimes must be supported at go-live (list origin/destination countries and whether electronic filing is required)?
- Which customs documentation and data elements must be auto-populated (e.g., HS/HTS codes, country of origin, importer of record, Commercial Invoice fields)?
- Do you require Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) or Automated Broker Interface (ABI) style filing integration with customs brokers?
- Who maintains commodity classification and tariff/HTS updates—your team or the broker?
- Are there duty deferral, free trade agreement, or bonded warehouse workflows to automate as part of customs handoffs?
- Are acceptance criteria required for customs automation (for example successful e-filing for X shipments and broker acknowledgment within Y hours)?
Orchestrate Drayage and Intermodal Execution
- Which drayage providers or pools will be used and do they support electronic booking or EDI tendering?
- Specify required gate appointment integration with terminals or drayage providers and whether appointment confirmations must be captured automatically.
- List intermodal handoffs that require coordination (e.g., ocean-to-drayage-to-rail, port to inland depot) and any required cutover windows.
- What service levels are required for final-mile drayage delivery (e.g., delivery within X hours of vessel discharge)?
- Are chassis management, container unpack/pack or yard storage workflows required as part of the orchestration?
- Do you require cost estimation for drayage and intermodal legs prior to tendering?
Consolidate Invoices and Freight Cost Allocation
- Which invoice types will be consolidated (carrier invoice, forwarder invoice, drayage invoice, customs brokerage invoice)?
- Specify how freight cost allocation should be split across orders or SKUs (e.g., weight-based, volume-based, value-based, per-PO allocation).
- Do you require automated invoice matching and three-way reconciliation against booking and POD (proof of delivery)?
- Are there currency conversion, intercompany billing, or tax treatment rules to apply at consolidation time?
- Who approves exceptions on invoice reconciliation and what approval thresholds apply (e.g., >5% variance requires manual approval)?
- Would you like consolidated invoice export formats for your finance system (CSV, AP portal layout, EDI 210)?
-
Mutual Commit
Finalize commercial and legal terms, responsibilities, SLAs, data-access authorizations, and implementation milestones.
Agreement Modules
- Master Services Agreement (MSA)
- Statement of Work (SOW)
- Subscription Order Form
- Service Level Agreement (SLA)
- Data Processing Agreement (DPA)
- Implementation Milestone Schedule
- Acceptance Criteria & Go-Live Checklist
- Change Order Agreement
- Carrier & Data-Access Authorization
-
Deployment
Lock readiness facts and configuration values before execution begins.
-
Pre-Deployment Readiness
Confirm owners, sample data availability, access rights, and go-live windows required for integrations and carrier onboarding.
Pre-Deployment Questions
Environment and access
- Which buyer environments will accept integration traffic for testing and go‑live? (so we can plan test vs production work)
- If production or staging will be available, what date will each environment be accessible to the deployment team? (enter a calendar date for each environment)
Data and configuration
- Are representative sample data sets available for end‑to‑end testing per trade lane (shipments, bookings, documents)?
- Who currently owns the source-of-truth for master data required during deployment (rate tables, carrier list, facility codes, commodity mappings)? (select the primary owner)
People and ownership
- Are named owners assigned for integrations, carrier onboarding, and deployment approvals? (this tells us whether we should schedule owner kickoff meetings)
- If any owners are unassigned or different than expected, list which owner roles remain open and who will be responsible for filling them (name the role and preferred contact method).
Timing and constraints
- Are there operational blackout windows or restricted go‑live dates per site or trade lane we must avoid? (e.g., fiscal close, peak season)
- If yes, provide the blackout window cadence / date ranges and the site or lane association (so we can schedule cutover outside those windows).
- Are security, legal, or vendor‑onboarding approvals required before production access (e.g., internal security review, SOC evidence, legal signoff)? If yes, who owns the approval and what is the expected completion date?
- Are third‑party teams or systems (ERP owners, customs brokers, warehouse operators, carrier IT contacts) gating the integration cutover? If yes, list the gating teams and who will coordinate with them.
-
Configuration & Integrations
Capture integration endpoints, API credentials, field mappings, rate/cost data rules, and carrier onboarding priorities.
Configuration Details
Environment & endpoints
- Integration environment identifier (enter a single short name the deployment build will use; Default: 'prod')
- Primary integration API base URL for the buyer's system (format: https://... — enter the exact base URL the connector will call, include API version if applicable)
Authentication & credential handoff
- Primary system category for this endpoint (choose one)
- Authentication method the platform will use for the primary endpoint (choose one — Default: OAuth2)
- Auth non-secret identifier to store (enter the client_id, integration username, or API key name — do NOT provide secrets; if unknown enter 'TBD')
- Secure channel the buyer will use to deliver secrets at deployment kickoff (choose one) — deployment will request secrets via this channel; do NOT paste secrets here
Field mappings & canonical identifiers
- Canonical order identifier source the buyer uses (choose the single source the platform should treat as the primary key)
- URL to the field-mapping document (exact link the deployment build will consume; format: https://... — or enter 'TBD')
Rates, cost rules & allocation
- Primary freight rate source the integration should use (choose one — Default: Seller-managed rate table)
- Default cost allocation rule applied during booking (choose one — Default: Charge-to-shipper)
Carrier & trade-lane onboarding priorities
- Top-priority trade lane for carrier/forwarder onboarding (enter a single lane in 'Origin, Country - Destination, Country' format; e.g., 'Shanghai, CN - Los Angeles, US')
- Second-priority trade lane for carrier/forwarder onboarding (enter one lane in 'Origin, Country - Destination, Country' format or enter 'None')
- Preferred onboarding target for the top-priority lane (choose one — this sets the initial operational focus)
Validation, cadence & cutover
- API data cadence expectation for production (choose one — Default: Near-real-time)
- Acceptance test shipment count required for cutover (enter an integer — Default: 3)
-
Onboarding & Deployment
Execute carrier and forwarder onboarding, ERP/order-system integration, test shipments, and the operational cutover with clear owners and timelines.
-
-
Success
Validate outcomes against success signals, track visibility and exception issues, and maintain a shared backlog for enhancements and carrier performance reviews.
Success Reviews
- Go-live Health Check
- First Measurement Review
- Acceptance Gate, Outcome Validation (day 90)
- Quarterly Success Review
Issues & Enhancements
- Publish the quarterly metric report and meeting notes to the shared workspace for asynchronous review.
- Publish the metric report with sample-event evidence and root-cause findings for the agreed time window.
- Open prioritized remediation tickets for integration, carrier, or process fixes with target completion dates.
- Schedule the acceptance gate meeting and circulate pre-read materials showing evidence mapped to Solution Scope criteria.
- Restate acceptance criteria and numeric targets
- Produce a documented pass or fail judgment for each acceptance criterion recorded in Solution Scope with a named buyer signatory where required.
- For any failed criteria, agree remediation tasks with owners and firm completion dates so acceptance can be achieved.
- Confirm the incumbent system decommission status and the plan to close any leftover fallback habits.
- Publish the formal acceptance decision and archive it alongside the evidence used for each criterion.
- List remediation tasks for failed criteria with owners and hard deadlines and add them to the shared backlog.
- Document incumbent system decommission steps taken, remaining tasks if any, and the final data-archive or migration report.
- Trend review of core metrics
- Confirm the platform continues to meet or progress toward shipment visibility accuracy and average exception volume targets recorded in Solution Scope.
- Agree a prioritized shared backlog of enhancements and carrier remediation items for the next quarter.
- Close or re-scope persistent operational issues with firm timelines and owners.
- Update the shared backlog with prioritized items and scheduled delivery quarters.
- Create remediation tickets for carriers with exception rates above the targets recorded in Solution Scope, including proposed corrective actions.
- Re-confirm success criteria and owners
- Confirm owners and the deployment checklist items from Solution Scope are complete or have documented remediation plans.
- Verify early user access and that sample data flows are present for initial measurement.
- Produce a prioritized list of blockers with target resolution dates for hypercare.
- Distribute the deployment validation log and definitive list of remaining configuration tasks for async review.
- Collect and share sample shipment records and integration logs needed for the first measurement meeting.
- Create remediation tickets for the top three production blockers with target resolution dates.
- Present metric dashboard
- Determine whether on-time milestone visibility rate and average exception resolution time are progressing toward the targets recorded in Solution Scope.
- Identify root causes for metric gaps and agree remediation tasks with target dates.
- Confirm the timeline and prerequisites for the acceptance gate meeting.
- Deployment and migration validation
- Carrier performance review
- Present outcome data against each criterion
- Diagnose root causes for any gaps
- Agree corrective actions and timelines
- Early adoption signals and usage patterns
- Document pass/fail decision and capture signatory
- Shared backlog review and prioritization
- Persistent operational issues and closure plan
- Confirm readiness and timeline for acceptance gate
- Agree remediation plan for any failed criteria
- Blockers and open issues triage
- Immediate remediation actions and next steps
- Confirm next quarter actions and owners
- Hypercare ticket burn-down review
- Incumbent wind-down confirmation
- Finalize acceptance record and next operational cadence