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3PL Integration

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Our Customer

Third Party Logistics Provider (3PL)

About Our Customer

For over 20 years this third party logistics provider (3PL) has provided full-service warehousing and distribution solutions to a wide range of businesses and manufacturing organizations. They are a large operation with 24 locations across the United States and over 2 million square feet of warehousing space.
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Key Focus For This Project

EDI, Integration, Enhanced Support, Manageable Pricing

The Issues To Resolve

EDI is a critical business function for the 3PL as they process hundreds to thousands of documents daily. Doing EDI results in the automated transmission of all of this data and the communication in the exact format required.

This 3PL had reached a tipping point with their current EDI service provider. Both day-to-day experiences and the overall handling of their account was proving less than satisfactory. They highlighted 3 specific areas where their current provider simply wasn’t working for them.

Non-responsive
  • When the 3PL’s team needed EDI related help, it wasn’t readily available: The 3PL could wait for extended periods where they couldn’t move forward due to lack of response from their provider.
No access to expertise
  • From time-to-time the 3PL management requires an EDI subject matter expert to join in on their sales calls: Their current provider was not prepared to make anyone available for those opportunities leaving the 3PL hamstrung without a technical resource.
High and fluctuating pricing
  • The 3PL was looking for ways to manage their EDI costs so that they could remain competitive.

Alone, any of these issues is troubling and potentially injurious to the 3PL’s business. Taken together they were sending clear signals that the 3PL needed to find a new and more dedicated EDI provider; one that they could rely on to service them attentively and who would respect the 3PLs business needs.

The Integral Group Solution

Senior 3PL management met the Integral Group management team at an industry event and slowly and cautiously began to explore synergies.

As EDI is important to the 3PL’s business and that of their customers, they chose not to move all of their business to Integral Group immediately. Instead they took the approach of trying Integral’s services in parallel to that of their current supplier. Throughout this period Integral Group handled increasingly more of the 3PL’s EDI transactions. We are now in the final stage of the transition plan for the 3PL to cease any activity with their old provider and deal exclusively with Integral Group.

How Integral Group addressed the 3PL’s specific pain points:

Highly responsive
  • The 3PL immediately found Integral Group’s support team available and accountable whenever they needed help; when the 3PL calls, the phone is picked up by a real person who takes ownership of the issue.
Available subject matter expert (SME)
  • The 3PL’s expertise is in logistics and they need specialized EDI knowledge for pre-sales calls. Simply, they need an SME who is technical where the 3PL is not, with an understanding of business process. At Integral Group a key element of our customer relationship is our consultative partnership. As such, our Director of Sales makes himself available for these calls as often as is required.
Flat rate pricing
  • To combat the vagaries of the traditional data-volume transmission-based fee structure, Integral Group has a flat-rate pricing model that is perfect for the 3PL; it provides easy to understand, predictable costs each month without the 3PL needing to be prepared for a slew of unexpected charges.

In addition to doing EDI to manage their orders, the 3PL also needed Integral Group to integrate with their specific WMS. Integral Group has integrated dozens of different WMS platforms for our customers and used this knowledge to execute this integration seamlessly.

Integral Group’s goal is to exceed the expectations of our customers: Just ‘good enough’ is never a satisfactory result. The overall feedback that we have had from the 3PL is that they are extremely happy doing EDI with us and with the outcome of the WMS integration project. Integral Group has made the 3PL’s environment more functional, their users have easy access to support and their costs are more manageable. And they have a highly skilled technical sales resource at their disposal to assist them in growing their business. The 3PL is so delighted with Integral Group that they have recommended our services to colleagues and two of those recommendations have become new Integral Group customers.
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The Issues To Resolve

EDI is a critical business function for the 3PL as they process hundreds to thousands of documents daily. Doing EDI results in the automated transmission of all of this data and the communication in the exact format required.

This 3PL had reached a tipping point with their current EDI service provider. Both day-to-day experiences and the overall handling of their account was proving less than satisfactory. They highlighted 3 specific areas where their current provider simply wasn’t working for them.

Non-responsive
  • When the 3PL’s team needed EDI related help, it wasn’t readily available: The 3PL could wait for extended periods where they couldn’t move forward due to lack of response from their provider.
No access to expertise
  • From time-to-time the 3PL management requires an EDI subject matter expert to join in on their sales calls: Their current provider was not prepared to make anyone available for those opportunities leaving the 3PL hamstrung without a technical resource.
High and fluctuating pricing
  • The 3PL was looking for ways to manage their EDI costs so that they could remain competitive.

Alone, any of these issues is troubling and potentially injurious to the 3PL’s business. Taken together they were sending clear signals that the 3PL needed to find a new and more dedicated EDI provider; one that they could rely on to service them attentively and who would respect the 3PLs business needs.

The Integral Group Solution

Senior 3PL management met the Integral Group management team at an industry event and slowly and cautiously began to explore synergies.

As EDI is important to the 3PL’s business and that of their customers, they chose not to move all of their business to Integral Group immediately. Instead they took the approach of trying Integral’s services in parallel to that of their current supplier. Throughout this period Integral Group handled increasingly more of the 3PL’s EDI transactions. We are now in the final stage of the transition plan for the 3PL to cease any activity with their old provider and deal exclusively with Integral Group.

How Integral Group addressed the 3PL’s specific pain points:

Highly responsive
  • The 3PL immediately found Integral Group’s support team available and accountable whenever they needed help; when the 3PL calls, the phone is picked up by a real person who takes ownership of the issue.
Available subject matter expert (SME)
  • The 3PL’s expertise is in logistics and they need specialized EDI knowledge for pre-sales calls. Simply, they need an SME who is technical where the 3PL is not, with an understanding of business process. At Integral Group a key element of our customer relationship is our consultative partnership. As such, our Director of Sales makes himself available for these calls as often as is required.
Flat rate pricing
  • To combat the vagaries of the traditional data-volume transmission-based fee structure, Integral Group has a flat-rate pricing model that is perfect for the 3PL; it provides easy to understand, predictable costs each month without the 3PL needing to be prepared for a slew of unexpected charges.
In addition to doing EDI to manage their orders, the 3PL also needed Integral Group to integrate with their specific WMS. Integral Group has integrated dozens of different WMS platforms for our customers and used this knowledge to execute this integration seamlessly.

Integral Group’s goal is to exceed the expectations of our customers: Just ‘good enough’ is never a satisfactory result. The overall feedback that we have had from the 3PL is that they are extremely happy doing EDI with us and with the outcome of the WMS integration project. Integral Group has made the 3PL’s environment more functional, their users have easy access to support and their costs are more manageable. And they have a highly skilled technical sales resource at their disposal to assist them in growing their business. The 3PL is so delighted with Integral Group that they have recommended our services to colleagues and two of those recommendations have become new Integral Group customers.