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Visible Supply Chain Management, formerly Integracore and now owned by Maersk, ships millions of
packages every year. Their global customers include household names in direct sales, retail and ecommerce,
and those customers depend on Visible to deliver flawlessly, day after day. That’s why when it came time to
upgrade their multi-carrier shipping platform to meet ever-evolving client requirements, Visible turned to
Pitney Bowes and their partner ConnectShip. Learn more about Visible SCM and Pitney Bowes.
THE CHALLENGE:
The stakes were high. Previous system changes had not always gone smoothly. As Visible Fulfillment Division President Kurt Flygare, explains, “Any time you implement a new system or upgrade an existing one, no matter how well you prepare, something can go wrong, and usually does.”
As any downtime or service interruptions in this project could translate into significant costs, and potentially lost customer business, the team set very high standards for the new solution. It had to integrate simply and quickly. They needed exceptional support through the entire process. And once up and running, the solution needed to improve Visible’s shipping metrics and provide other clear benefits to the business.
“Any time you make an enterprise switch, you’re comforted by partnering with somebody who is going to provide the resources to ensure you’re successful—and Pitney Bowes did.” said Kurt Flygare, President, Fulfillment Division at Visible Supply Chain Management.
THE SOLUTION:
ConnectShip, Visible’s key shipping solution provider, was very familiar with these challenges and recommended making the Pitney Bowes Complete Shipping APIs for USPS® postage available on the ConnectShip multi-carrier shipping platform. The Pitney Bowes solution is based on a RESTful web services architecture that simplifies integration while shortening implementation and testing times. The solution also delivers significant improvements in capacity and transaction speeds.
At the same time, the support infrastructure put in place by Pitney Bowes and ConnectShip addressed the customer’s risk concerns, providing assurance once the project began.
“We had tremendous support from Pitney Bowes and ConnectShip,” says Visible Executive Vice President of IT, Rob Glance. “We had daily 8:00 am calls, and we had all the expertise on the calls we needed to support us throughout the implementation.”
With the strong backing from both Pitney Bowes and ConnectShip, the project moved ahead quickly. “The ease of integration was much better than anything that we had with our legacy system,” Glance says.
"The ConnectShip solution with the Pitney Bowes API took 24 hours to implement, versus four weeks for our old system.”
Rob Glance
Executive VP of IT
Visible Supply Chain Management
Glance’s team also saw a significant improvement in transaction speeds. “The Pitney Bowes API is much quicker, producing labels 140% faster than our legacy PC solution,” says Glance.
Encouraged by the early success of the solution, the Visible team plans to rely more heavily on the new system and its ability to scale. “We’ve had great success with the application’s capacity," Glance says. "We’ve done a lot of shipping over the last month, and we’re now at about 70,000 shipments per day. Our daily shipments will continue to grow significantly, our projections are showing that we will double our average daily shipments to around 140,000."
THE RESULTS:
“We had tremendous support from Pitney Bowes and ConnectShip...daily 8:00 am calls, and we had all the expertise on the calls we needed to support us throughout the implementation. The ease of integration was much better than anything that we had with our legacy system.”
Rob Glance
Executive VP of IT
Visible Supply Chain Management
The dramatic improvement in transaction times is making a big difference for Visible, as they can process more packages per shift and get them out the door sooner. “The faster implementation time definitely saved us money,” says Glance. “And the faster connection and transaction speeds do as well.”
The ability to scale and take on larger and more complex customer projects promises to provide a significant edge for the Visible sales team as they compete for new business. At the same time, Visible will be able to provide better service and a broader range of options for current clients.
A recent engagement with a top Visible client drove home the value of the new system for Glance. When the client ran into trouble with their current shipping provider, Glance and his team were able to step in and lend a hand. “Their provider couldn’t handle their volume or complexity,” explains Rob. “They asked us for help, so we took their shipments and ran them through our ConnectShip/Pitney Bowes system. It ran just perfectly, and our client was very happy. And they’ve continued using our solution.”
MULTI CARRIER | MULTI MODAL | MULTI PLATFORM
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