Transportation Costing Group, a provider of profitability management tools and activity-based cost analysis for the transportation industry, announced that it has signed an exclusive reseller agreement with BI3 for the marketing and distribution of the company’s business intelligence analysis tool, Cube-IT.
Under the agreement with BI3, TCG has exclusive use of Cube-IT for motor carrier TCG applications under the name Cube-IT Powered by TCG. TCG says that since its Cost Information System is set up to reconcile to the General Ledger, the addition of Cube-IT Powered by TCG to the company’s CIS product line will give motor carriers easy, dynamic, 360-degree view without the constriction of reports. Cube-IT creates an “information democracy” based on exact data, not estimations, in a company’s financial and operating statements, according to TCG.
“Cube-IT Powered by TCG is a highly effective, intensive profitability analysis management tool because of its dynamic drill-down capability,” says Ken Manning, president of Bethesda, Md.-based TCG. “Typical business intelligence tools only provide data in fixed formats. Cube-IT Powered by TCG allows an analyst to design and redesign reports on the fly, as needed, without having to generate raw data each time.”
As a management tool, Cube-IT Powered by TCG is designed to utilize data in TCG’s patented CIS cost analysis technology to provide a 360-degree view of all the operational factors that can impact costs and profitability. “Cube-IT Powered by TCG can generate reports on the spot that allow for a comprehensive analysis based on customers, lanes, length of haul and even commodity types,” Manning says. “It is also the only solution available that ties into driver settlement and payroll data to evaluate driver and driver manager performance.”
Initially developed by Pitt Ohio Express, a sister company to BI3, for internal use with TCG’s Cost Information System, the solution has helped the motor carrier eliminate $40 million in unprofitable business in three years, according to the carrier. Pittsburgh-based Pitt Ohio, which generates in excess of $225 million in revenue annually, says it also realized an improvement of three points in its operating ratio while growing its business significantly in the same period. The LTL carrier services the entire Mid-Atlantic Region, as well as Ohio, West Virginia and the Detroit and Chicago metropolitan areas.
“Cube-IT goes beyond traditional analysis and reporting solutions,” says Ray Johnson, chief financial officer at Pitt Ohio. “It enables technology to provide real-time access to databases for intelligent transportation-sensitive analysis, problem finding and solution building. It is also highly user-friendly because it utilizes the same Microsoft applications you have come to understand and use most productively.”
Cube-IT at Pitt Ohio was the recipient of a 2004 Gartner CRM Excellence Award. The award for Exemplary Demonstration of CRM Excellence in the small- to mid-size enterprise category is dedicated to promoting excellence in customer relationship management. In choosing Pitt Ohio as an award winner, Gartner cited the unique approach that was followed along with the organization’s process and collaboration that its CRM technology enabled. Gartner is a provider of research and analysis on the global information technology industry.
“We can stand each customer on their own merits and see the value we provide to them and the value they provide to us,” says Chuck Hammel, Pitt Ohio president. “We never had that precision visibility before. Now we do.”
For more information, go to www.tcgcis.com.
