Transglobal Cargo (Pty) Ltd, established in 1997, is a South African-based freight forwarding and logistics company with headquarters in Durban and additional offices in Cape Town and Johannesburg. With over two decades of experience, Transglobal offers a comprehensive suite of services, including sea, air, and road freight, customs brokerage, warehousing, and specialized logistics solutions for hazardous materials, luxury vehicles, and museum consignments.
The company is an accredited Authorised Economic Operator (AEO) and a member of global networks such as WCA and the African Logistics Network (ALN), ensuring extensive international reach and compliance with global standards. Transglobal’s commitment to quality and innovation positions it as a leader in the logistics industry, providing tailored solutions to meet diverse client needs.
Let’s look further on how Elicit Technology, as a CargoWise service partner with over 25 years of experience in logistics and supply chain, provides comprehensive CargoWise services, implementing tailored workflows, and efficient autorating solutions. It expertly handled report configuration and custom field creation to meet the client’s specific needs. Their team also simplified the client rates configuration and management, culminating in a smooth Cargowise Neo implementation for enhanced system usability.
Challenges Faced by Transglobal Cargo
Despite having CargoWise in place as their core ERP, Transglobal’s team faced mounting inefficiencies due to the lack of process automation and system customization. The following key issues impacted their day-to-day operations:
Manual and Fragmented Workflows
Critical tasks such as shipment bookings, documentation approvals, and internal communications were still being managed manually. These disconnected processes caused frequent delays, miscommunication between teams, and inconsistent outcomes, especially in complex cargo operations. There were no automated triggers or approvals built into the system, making it difficult to ensure compliance and maintain process consistency.
Time-Consuming and Error-Prone Rate Calculations
The operation team had to manually calculate rates (both cost and revenue) for each shipment, which consumed valuable time and often led to quoting inaccuracies. Rate structures were complex, especially when dealing with different transportation modes, customer-specific agreements, and fluctuating carrier tariffs.
Rigid Reporting with Limited Business Insight
Transglobal’s management had minimal visibility into performance trends across branches and departments due to the limited flexibility of default CargoWise reports. Standard reports didn’t offer the level of completeness required to monitor KPIs like profitability by client or margin trends per route. This gap restricted leadership from making fast, data-driven decisions.
Lack of Custom Fields to Capture Specialized Data
Given their niche service offerings, including handling of hazardous and high-value cargo, Transglobal needed to record specific internal notes and client instructions within the CargoWise system. However, the absence of custom fields restricted how much operational detail could be captured and shared between departments, increasing the risk of service errors and miscommunication.
Readiness for CargoWise Neo Migration
Transglobal was interested in CargoWise to Neo implementation, just like many other users on how to make sure that their workflows, rate structures, and customizations carried over without interfering with day-to-day operations. Their system was not yet optimized for Neo’s current interface and capabilities, which resulted in user resistance and performance issues during the early deployment.
Elicit Technology’s Solution:
Elicit Technology stepped in as a strategic partner to reconfigure and optimize Transglobal’s CargoWise environment. Our team focused on four key areas to transform the system into a truly customized, process-efficient platform.
Automated Workflows for Simplified Operations
We implemented structured workflows across key operational tasks, including shipment bookings, approval processes, and exception handling. These automated flows triggered actions and escalations at the right points, ensuring no step was missed. Corresponding approvers or customers now receive real-time notifications for approvals of the documents or invoices, while operations staff are guided through a streamlined, standardized path for every booking/ other job transaction.
Auto-rating Engine for Pricing Accuracy
To eliminate manual rate calculation which may cause errors and delays, our team configured the auto-rating feature to align with Transglobal’s existing rate structures (Client contracts) against individual clients, including common documentation fee, surcharges, carrier contracts, etc., The system now automatically pulls the applicable rates, applies relevant markups, and generates accurate cost and revenue instantly across air, sea, and road freight whenever a new job transaction is created against those particular clients.
Custom Report Configuration for Better Visibility
We designed and implemented a set of fully customized reports that gave Transglobal’s leadership access to real-time insights. These included profitability dashboards by branch, shipment margin reports by mode, and sales performance scorecards. All reports were integrated within CargoWise, allowing department heads to view and export data as needed, without relying on external tools or manual tracking.
Custom Field Creation for Enhanced Operational Control
Elicit Technology configured custom fields based on Transglobal and their customer’s workflow within the CargoWise interface to capture unique data points essential to the operation. These included handling instructions for hazardous cargo, client-specific delivery protocols, and quality checkpoints. These fields were made mandatory at key stages, ensuring all necessary information was captured upfront and visible across departments which may be useful while generating some specific reports against customers and their shipments.
CargoWise Neo Implementation
Elicit Technology concentrated on improving real-time visibility and client experience as part of the Neo implementation. The new system allows Transglobal’s clients to track shipments in real time, reducing the need for continual manual updates or support calls. Customers can access documents, invoices, milestones, and shipping statuses at any time via an easy-to-use self-service portal, considerably boosting operational transparency. This kind of access not only fosters confidence and long-term partnerships, but also demonstrates Transglobal’s commitment to service excellence. The organization has experienced significant cost savings and improved data accuracy by reducing manual interventions, which additionally simplified internal operations and customer communication.
Results
The system enhancements delivered by Elicit Technology brought immediate and measurable improvements across Transglobal’s operations:
- Reduced Turnaround Time: Shipment bookings and document approvals were completed up to 40% faster, due to workflow automation and real-time alerts.
- 95% Accuracy in Rate Management: Autorating eliminated errors and enabled the sales team to respond to customer quote requests significantly faster.
- Stronger Decision-Making: With tailored reports available on demand, Transglobal’s leadership gained deeper visibility into branch-wise performance and profitability trends, leading to more confident, data-driven decisions.
- Improved Internal Collaboration: Custom fields helped bridge gaps between departments by ensuring specialized instructions and cargo requirements were always documented, visible, and followed.
- Future-Ready with Neo: The system optimization also laid the groundwork for a smooth CargoWise Neo transition, making daily operations even easier to use and intuitive for their teams.
Conclusion
Transglobal Cargo’s collaboration with Elicit Technology meant a significant shift from manual, decentralized operations to an efficient, data-driven logistics management system. We assisted Transglobal in realizing the full potential of CargoWise by implementing customized workflows, intelligent autorating, intelligent reporting, and adaptable field configurations, making sure that their ERP complements their distinct business model rather than the other way around.
Are you trying to get the most out of CargoWise for your international logistics operations?
Contact Elicit Technology for custom system configurations, automation methods, and continuous support designed specifically for your workflow.
