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.
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.
Your Trusted Partner For The Final Import Mile