Every company’s shipping needs are unique. All too often companies are forced to bend their needs to their transportation partners’ one-size-fits-all solutions. When shippers need to utilize several different transportation solutions, they are often forced to jump between different platforms — and often different companies altogether — to get their loads covered. With the growing focus on all-in-one offerings across the industry, this is beginning to change.
CRST is well known for its wide swath of solutions and overall expertise. The company has made a name for itself through its deft handling of fragile and high-profile shipments, including pharmaceuticals and expensive technological equipment. One of the things that makes the company stand out most, however, is its clear effort to bring together a multitude of services under its enterprise umbrella.
Instead of creating silos for each of its offerings, CRST brings them together under one roof. This intentional move streamlines the shipping for clients who require multiple different services to get their products from one place to the next.
It has become somewhat popular in recent months to aggregate multiple offerings into a single platform — often billed as a way to combat app fatigue and promote efficiency. Still, CRST Senior Vice President of Sales Stuart Rosenlund made it clear that the company is not simply following the crowd. In fact, offering a full suite of services through the greater CRST enterprise has been one of the company’s goals for a long time.
“We are not necessarily trying to follow a trend. We are trying to better understand our customers and give them what they are looking for. I think our more sophisticated customers are looking for a multifaceted solution that allows them to come to just one place,” Rosenlund said. “We can provide that solution and help them offload a lot of risk. We can save them time and missed opportunities by allowing them to put everything under one umbrella and simplify their programs.”
Aside from lost time and simple inconvenience, the primary risks that accompany fragmented systems are shipment failures and missed opportunities. It is easy to overlook seemingly small mistakes when frequently switching between platforms. Those small mistakes, however, can turn into costly delays and flat-out failures if they are not caught in time. Once multiple services are aggregated together, there is less opportunity for mistakes and a higher likelihood that any slipups will be caught in time to avoid a full-on crisis.
CRST offers a large variety of coast-to-coast transportation solutions, including dedicated, flatbed, integrated, expedited, specialized, health science and home solutions. This allows CRST to cover a shipper’s needs as they change, and it allows shippers to expand to new lanes and new product types without having to worry about finding a partner to meet their new needs.
When a single point of contact handles all of a company’s freight needs, customers are rewarded with lower costs, less confusion and more transparent shipments.
Click here to learn more about CRST’s full suite of transportation management solutions.