Project success

Tender Logistics-DL International

Project at a glance

Client: German consumer goods and retail company

Consulting activities:

 

  • Preparation and execution of a tender for international logistics services.
  • Product group and demand analysis, design and setup of the tender as well as project management, preparation of documents and evaluation procedures incl. status and final reports as well as decision documents, implementation of the tender, execution of the award negotiation, presentation of the award recommendation.

Initial situation

  • The tender was carried out in the commodity group Logistics Services International / Transport Services
  • The objectives of the tender in decreasing order were: Short-term security of supply, reduction of freight rates, quality of service, adherence to specified time windows, and availability in the event of short-term changes in demand.
  • Not all information and data could be provided by the customer in an optimal way, e.g. forecasts and cost transparency for ancillary services were missing.
  • At the same time, however, the customer was open to new ideas, concepts and approaches.

 

Project success: 20% cost savings by reducing freight rates and ancillary services and optimizing the service description

Project execution

With the termination of the contract by the existing supplier, the situation was critical and security of supply had to be established at short notice by a new partner (changeover period = 3 months). Therefore, in contrast to the customer's standard procedure, the scope and design of the tender was redesigned and set up in close coordination. As the logistics market is global and polypolistic, 50 potential service providers were identified and invited to tender in the short time available. Parallel to the invitation to tender, the processes were examined for their cost-effectiveness and existing waste was eliminated. A shortlist was drawn up from the potential providers and the respective bidders were invited to award talks, which DBC took charge of. Based on the discussions and the offers, a recommendation for action could be presented, which was finally accompanied until the conclusion of the contract and implementation.

Project result

Due to the transparent presentation of the documents, eleven qualified offers were received, which fully met the desired objectives of the tender. With the now optimized processes, the customer not only has a modified service description, but also reduced the two main cost drivers, ancillary services, by 60% and freight rates by 14%. The completed project saved 20% of the costs and installed an alternative to the previous monopolistic in-house supplier.