Rapid growth, limited resources
A multinational transportation and ecommerce company is responsible for the logistics and delivery of millions of goods every day. The company is dedicated to robust customer service and innovation, with a continued eye on growth opportunities.
The company faced unprecedented ecommerce growth as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic in late 2019 and throughout 2020. Because of this growth, there was a drastic increase in the company’s project volume—projects included facility management, IT environment monitoring, and more. The rapid growth paired with increased project demand meant the company faced not having sufficient personnel to keep up with the volume.
A trusted partner for project support
The company, having worked with CAI on other engagements for more than 20 years, reached out about augmenting their existing project teams to ensure they stayed on track and on time. The logistics company needed a partner and team who could travel to the company’s facilities as needed and work collaboratively not only with IT teams, but with key business stakeholders as well. In prior work with CAI teams, the company liked the results, partnership, and people that they worked alongside.
CAI put a team in place to handle project coordination—giving internal project teams more time and resources to focus on higher-value activities and outcomes. Working closely with the logistics company’s project staff, the CAI team coordinates thousands of projects to help the client remain competitive and keep up with their growth. Project types vary based on different business needs, and the CAI team handles all of them.
The day-to-day work that CAI project coordinators manage includes:
- Process and procedure coordination
- Project kickoff calls
- Stakeholder scheduled maintenance
- IT testing
- IT and project troubleshooting
- Project status reporting
The CAI coordinators schedule, monitor, test, and troubleshoot projects, giving our client’s Regional Leads the ability to focus on broader initiatives and higher-level coordination with internal IT partners. They assign tasks to applicable support groups, track the status and completion of tasks, and continually monitor progress. To increase the visibility of the many parallel projects, CAI developed a Microsoft® Power BI dashboard to increase leadership visibility to project status. The quick implementation of the solution and thought leadership for project coordination displayed by CAI provided value to our partner by freeing up resources to focus on strategic goals.
Because of the success of the partnership, the logistics company continues to look to CAI for consultative and advisory services. As demand from the pandemic settles out and business stabilizes, the company has shifted its focus to adapt to changing times and remain competitive in the industry. The CAI team is closely involved in this next phase of the business, both from a project coordination and long-term planning perspective.
Proven results at a high volume
In the first two years of the engagement, the CAI team coordinated 1,094 new projects. That number has grown to more than 2,000 and continues to climb as the logistics company continues to grow and change.
In addition to project coordination, the CAI team has conducted 216 IT equipment test calls with the logistics company since the beginning of the engagement. These calls are meant to ensure proper implementation and use of equipment and troubleshoot where needed. 52 of the 216 tests uncovered issues that would have negatively impacted production if they were not caught during the proactive tests.
With such measurable results in a short amount of time, the logistics company continues to look to CAI as a trusted partner—not just for project coordination, but in future planning and strategizing as well. We look forward to continued growth alongside this client.
CAI offers a robust suite of consultative and advisory services. No matter the level of guidance required, our experts are ready to collaborate with you and share their extensive knowledge. Learn more about how we can work together to make you successful not just today, but in the long term too.
