Sysco Supercharges Global Operations with Freightos

Getting Rates Under Control

Ship tens of thousands of tons of product daily? Sysco IFG does, reaching millions of consumers, including healthcare institutions, educational facilities, and leading restaurant franchises. This means coordinating thousands of products from 90+ countries. Sysco became a Fortune 100 $44 billion company with great products and a great supply chain, emerging as America’s largest food service company.

Tim Crumley, VP of Global Logistics at Sysco’s IFG division, says that his group aims to:

• Reduce costs to customers.
• Reduce delivery time for cargo, documents, and information.
• Increase logistics income.

Looking for technology, Tim found Freightos.

Large distributors, retailers, and manufacturers struggle to make freight shipping rates available to sales and sourcing teams. But that’s only half the battle. It’s critical to ensure teams use those rates. While some logistics teams provide rates and can do little more than hope, Sysco IFG’s logistics and accounting teams were involved in the sales process. Beyond draining resourcing from the three teams, Tim acknowledges it, “slowed the sales process, and cost us sales”.

With Freightos, sales reps check door-to-door international freight rates online in seconds during meetings with suppliers or customers. Logistics and accounting teams are still involved but now check only a fraction of sales. And with Freightos, the checking takes much less time.

So Tim’s eager to complete the country ocean-rate rollout and expand coverage to other modes. “We are only at about 30% of the benefit that we can make from the current capabilities of Freightos.”

Using Freightos delivers more sales, but the time saved talks even louder for Tim, who estimates a 10% time reduction in the freight rating process, a 5% reduction in error rates, and more streamlined sales operations than ever.

Better Freight Negotiations

Before meeting carriers, Tim analyses route profitability. But manually compiling current rates from carriers into a useable form meant a large time investment and possible inaccuracies Using Freightos to check negotiated rates from carriers, Tim’s team spends much less time in preparation. He’s more confident in the data and can better understand market rates and market trends. Tim forecasts that this will bring in a substantial “bottom line” benefit in first-year cost savings, which will be backed up with lower ongoing year-on-year savings.

Freightos has changed the way that we look at day to day business…. We are only at about 30% of the benefit that we can make from the current capabilities of Freightos.

Tim Crumley
VP Global Logistics

Real-Time Market Rates

With spot quoting sometimes as much as 30% lower than negotiated rates, access to market rates and trend visibility are critical when spot quoting. While this wasn’t what drew Tim to Freightos, rate comparisons and spot quoting on limited modes or lanes are becoming an increasingly attractive proposition. Online freight quoting, comparisons, and booking can also bring even more supply chain savings for Sysco IFG, in the form of better, more cost-effective, sourcing decisions.

Delivering on Cost, Time, and Income

Bringing together Sysco IFG’s current and future use of Freightos shows how they are staying true to their three goals – reducing customer costs, saving time, and increasing the bottom line. In Tim’s words: “Freightos has become one of the cornerstones of our logistics processes. The breadth of real-time information across multiple functional areas allows us to streamline interaction in our day-to-day business … making more aggressive leaps in our carrier partner selections”.