If your import business has grown fast (or grown apart) it’s time to align how you operate.
In today’s hyper-competitive logistics landscape, operational fragmentation is the silent killer of efficiency. For many North American importers, this fragmentation is not a flaw, but a byproduct of growth.
As importers grow, so do their operational complexities. Business units multiply (some added through acquisition, others through organic growth), and each team builds its own systems, partners, and processes. Over time, the supply chain becomes more and more fragmented.
The outcomes can be costly:
- No single source of truth for shipment data
- Redundant processes and systems
- Hard-to-compare performance across business units
- Poor leverage in logistics negotiations
- Limited ability to improve at scale
- Missing data
For many shippers, this fragmentation isn’t due to mismanagement. It’s simply what happens when companies grow faster than their operations can evolve or merge.
The result? You may wake up one day with a patchwork of supply chain strategies, siloed data sets, inconsistent carrier and logistics provider relationships, and missed opportunities for leverage and performance.
More shippers are recognizing the need for a singular execution model. Finding out how to solve this challenge without a costly disruption to day-to-day operations? That’s what we’ll dive into in this article!
The Challenge: Fragmented Ops, Fragmented Outcomes
Imagine a shipper with five business units, each with its own import process. One uses a legacy TMS. Another works off spreadsheets (yikes! But yes). A third relies on a single broker’s portal. You get the drift… Even if each group is competent in isolation, the larger organization loses visibility, consistency, and buying power.
This fragmentation often creates:
- Redundant processes and misaligned workflows
- Inconsistent logistics performance across regions
- Inefficient use of carriers, chassis, warehousing, etc…
- Limited ability to compare performance or consolidate spend
- Siloed data that fails to inform C-suite decisions
… Not to mention the amount of time team members waste trying to pull reports and figure out the shortcomings. You can’t improve what you can’t understand!
When a shipper makes the decision to move towards a unified execution model, the goal isn’t necessarily to centralize ALL operations under one team. The goal is to unify how those teams operate, how data flows, and to leverage the full power of the parent org so the company can perform like a single, high-functioning importer.
“By having the technology, process and team in place to support our business, we have been able to realize immediate cost savings and service improvements upon implementation.”
Success in Action: How Ferguson Enterprises Leverages a Unified Model with EDRAY
Ferguson Enterprises has seen incredible growth in recent years, both organically and through strategic acquisition. One of the challenges when acquiring new brands is finding an efficient way to run a more unified supply chain while still allowing each business unit flexibility or autonomy over other parts of their brand operations.
By working with EDRAY, the Ferguson team was able to create a singular execution model and migrate to a unified tech solution across their growing book of business units. EDRAY is able to measure performance alongside Ferguson, identify gaps and areas of improvement, while also providing benchmarking between the different business units.
Through the EDRAY operational cycle, platform and reporting tools, Ferguson has quantitative data at their fingertips to make informed decisions. With consistent tools and operational practices across exiting business units, this also makes growth much smoother. Each new acquisition now has a playbook and baselines for implementation from day one.
Since partnering with EDRAY, the Ferguson team has been able to seamlessly align new business units to leverage the scale and efficiencies already in place. This has quickly improved overall execution, eliminated redundancies across the process and has provided a holistic view of their entire import network. Sundra Glennon, Director of International Logistics said “EDRAY has a team and tech approach that we have been able to leverage to integrate and optimize acquisitions more efficiently. By having the technology, process and team in place to support our business, we have been able to realize immediate cost savings and service improvements upon implementation. Additionally, EDRAY’s solution takes on the IT integration work so our internal resources are not tied up as we make these transitions. That has been key to our speed of implementation.”
Why Make the Switch? One Execution Model, Many Benefits
Leading importers are moving toward a unified execution model, which is one consistent framework for how import shipping containers are managed, moved, and measured across business units.
Before you start breaking out the org chart and panicking, fret not! This new model doesn’t require merging internal teams or heavy disruptions in each business unit/division. Instead, this shift is about aligning the processes, tools, and partners each business unit will use.
Getting aligned in one logistics execution model helps shippers act like one company, even when the business units stay separate.
A unified model creates:
- One set of workflows across business units
- One location for visibility, analytics, and reporting
- One approach to carrier and stakeholder management
- One foundation for performance benchmarking and process improvement
This kind of alignment cleans up your operation and creates leverage.
Bonus! Your once-disparate business units are now aligned as one powerful, efficient shipper.
How EDRAY Makes the Transition Simple for Shippers
EDRAY’s platform and service model are built for exactly this kind of organizational complexity by giving shippers the ability to operate as one importer—even if their teams or internal sub-brands stay decentralized in other aspect of operations.
By managing and absorbing the complexity of the import journey, EDRAY helps shippers enforce a single, tech-enabled workflow across all business units.
Here’s how it works:
- Onboarding and Configuration: Each business unit is onboarded into the same platform, with flexibility to keep local preferences while conforming to an overarching, parent-company-approved process.
- Centralized Visibility: All container movements flow into one dashboard, offering end-to-end tracking and consolidated analytics.
- Accessorial and Exception Management: EDRAY standardizes how accessorials are reviewed, approved, or disputed, helping reduce cost leakage across teams.
- Unified Import Execution: All stakeholders are managed through one set of standards, enabling consolidated bidding, better scorecarding, and less performance variability.
- Continuous Optimization: Performance data is fed back to each unit, creating a loop that encourages adoption of best-in-class practices enterprise-wide.
Shippers who work with EDRAY know the benefits don’t stop once all their business units are more aligned. Dedicated account experts at EDRAY help importers leverage their “new” larger, unified size for better rates and partnerships and find ways to improve again and again over time (with minimal to no disruptions to day-to-day ops).
Parting Notes for the Growing Importer
If your import business has grown fast—or grown apart—it’s time to align how you operate. Don’t wait for a crisis to force a fix. A unified execution model gives you a stronger, smarter supply chain and sets you up for success with continued growth.
With EDRAY, you get the tools, expertise, and support to make that shift. One platform. One process. One view of your import world.
Even if your teams stay separate, your operations can move as one.
Want to chat unification?
Let’s do it! Contact our team here.
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