As competition in the transport business market has become fierce, transport companies see an alternative in expanding their operations through reliable international alliances. To support this new strategy, Ixonos’ experts designed a unique business analysis and planning solution for a transport company. The new tool enables simulation of plans and market changes, and provides impact analysis that covers the entire route network.
Background
Competition between transport companies is fierce, and start-ups challenge established transport actors by aggressively pushing prices down. In order to stand up against the challengers, a Finland-based transport company adopted a new, strongly network-based business strategy that enabled the company to expand its operations into new areas.
The company’s reporting systems had to be readjusted for the new strategy. When planning new co-operation routes,the company wanted to monitor the profitability and productivity of the entire transport network, not only individualtransport routes. Ixonos was chosen to supply the new business analysis and planning solution.
Solution
Ixonos’ experts designed and implemented for the transport company an entirely new type of solution for analysing and planning business profitability. In eight months Ixonos completed a 1,000 man-day design and implementation project where data scattered in different back end systems were merged into a clear reporting entity. The solution utilizes Informatica ETL tools as well as Cognos Data Warehouse and Business Intelligence tools.
The user interface is an IBM Websphere portal solution. The new system was designed so that it enables reporting of
both profit and cost data. It is also capable of simulating the impact of new transport routes on the profits and costs of the entire route network. The features of the system designed by Ixonos support the management’s decision-making when analysing new routes, co-operation partners and developments of the market.
Benefits
Thanks to its strong know-how of business processes, Ixonos’ expert team was able to quickly conceptualise and analyse the customer’s business dynamics and thus to meet the customer’s needs. In the project Ixonos applied agile project management methodology, which is convenient when designing new types of solutions in short time and in close cooperation with the customer.
Thanks to the report and analysis solution developed by Ixonos, the management of the transport company now has cost-efficient access to reliable and exact data for evaluation of new routes and markets. The system also provides thecustomer with tools for pricing and marketing various transport products.