For the past 10 years, Thortrans has experienced growth rates of around 15% per year as a result of both organic growth and acquisitions. That growth was a key reason why Thortrans seriously took Business Intelligence (BI) on board. “Thortrans is undergoing rapid growth. We know our business inside and out, but we need to know our financial results in detail, and what is going well and less well,” says Jørgen Skov, CFO of the transport and logistics company Thortrans. “We operate in a highly competitive market. If we are to earn money in the future, we need BI and data to look inward, so we can streamline our transport services. The ability to deploy BI and data is crucial to our results.”

Columbus’ experience helped create structure and overview

According to Jørgen, it was important for Thortrans to prepare properly before they started building and implementing their overall BI solution.
“We started off with a phase of analysis with Columbus to achieve an overview. They asked questions. We described correlations and flows in the company. Finally we ended up with a complex analysis with numerous lines between warehouse, office and IT etc. We had no doubt that we were speaking to someone who had previous experience in the field. They really got to know our business and guided us, asking us: ‘Is this really what you want?’ Their experience helped us structure our needs and provided us with an overview.”

Many roads lead to data

“In the analysis phase, Columbus also helped us look at our data and data sources. We have several systems. What data did we have? Where could we get data from? What could we use data for? What reports did we need? We also received a lot of great input into these issues too,” remembers Jørgen. The path to data was not a direct one. “Together, we developed a lot of great shortcuts for calculating something we don’t really have data to calculate. So, we took a few steps backwards and extracted data from two different systems in order to achieve the result. For example, we can calculate our diesel costs because we have gained access to data on diesel consumption by our vehicles at MAN and Mercedes. Together with the price of a liter of diesel, we can then calculate diesel consumption in DKK.”

BI = business development based on  collaboration

“At Thortrans, we do not work with BI and data insight in order to monitor and point fingers. We want to support and help each other in our day-to-day work. The vast majority of transport related challenges are not the fault of the drivers. They are the fault of us in the office who didn’t plan their day properly or enter into the appropriate agreements with the customer,” says Jørgen. BI has provided Thortrans with new, detailed insight into the business, based on facts instead of gut feelings. “For example, we knew well in advance that there was a big difference in turnover per vehicle. But we didn’t know why. Having started working with our data in Power BI, we can now follow up on each individual vehicle and each individual trip. Costs of fuel and the likes of bridge or ferry fees, time consumption vis-à-vis driving time, waiting time in traffic jams, and waiting time and loading time when visiting customers etc. That way we can improve our planning of a driver’s day and routes, thereby reducing wasted time caused by traffic jams on the highway or waiting time when visiting customers. We have high expectations.”