A practitioner, not a vendor
In my day job I am responsible for IT and controlling at a mid-sized freight forwarder. That dual role is the reason for the perspective on these pages.
Two questions that mislead on their own
What does it cost, and what does it return? And: how is it built, and will it hold? Both questions are right, and either one alone leads to an effort that does not carry.
Controlling alone
The case is made to look good and never holds technically.
IT alone
Something clean gets built that nobody asked for.
The licence is in the quote. The exceptions, the master-data upkeep and the training are not.
A project is judged commercially only: what does it cost, what does it return?
One example from the arithmetic
The figure in the quote is rarely the figure that matters. The larger item appears on no invoice because nobody books it — and it grows every month nobody adds it up.
What the quote says
A manageable amount per year.
What it does not say
Two people, half a day a week each, on the exceptions. After a year the larger item — and in no business case, because nobody books it.
The quote carries a manageable annual figure. It gets compared and approved.
What is here — and what is not
Three limits I hold to. They restrict what can appear on this site, and that is exactly their purpose: a text that may claim anything says nothing.
The line between “can” and “does”
I do not write about tools I have not used myself.
Nothing about the company
No name, no size, no figures. The point is that the experience comes from a freight forwarder — not which one.
My own opinion, not my employer’s
Nothing is sold here.
Topics
Three fields that belong together in daily business and get handled separately. Each built the same way: state of the art, one example from operations, and what the best make of it.
AI in dispatch
Who builds the process around the model?
BI as steering
Not as reporting.
From 80 to 99 per cent
With documents, the remainder is the work.
Disagreement is welcome. If you know a case from your own operation that contradicts mine, write to me — the better texts come out of those replies.
Where the best solution sits today
What is named is the pattern, not the vendor — a product name ages, an idea does not.
Think from the outcome
The best description of a project starts with the decision that now goes differently — not with the technology.
Count the exception first
Knowing how often the special case occurs tells you whether automating the regular one pays.
Experience beats announcement
What someone has run themselves carries further than what the brochure says.