The Company
Established in 1976, Countrywide Freight
is a privately owned distribution company
with a turnover in excess of £28 million
and is the market leader in Anglo‐Irish
groupage It handles more than 10,000
consignments every day.
The Challenge
In 2005, Countrywide identified that it
needed to implement greater security
measures for high value consignments
and to provide its customers with more
accurate ETAs. Operations staff were unable
to provide accurate delivery times or
locate consignments without making a
series of costly phone calls.
The Strategy
Countrywide decided to deploy a vehicle
tracking system that would:
• Locate vehicles in real‐time
• Provide accurate customer arrival times
• Allow for vehicles to be re‐routed at
short notice
• Eliminate the requirement for co‐drivers
for high‐value consignments
• Provide historic and real‐time reporting
• Be delivered from a single platform
In order to find a solution that would support
this strategy, Countrywide evaluated
five vehicle tracking firms.
The Decision
SimplyTrak was chosen after a 3 month,
extended trial. It was chosen based on
system cost, ease of use, reliability, exceptional
customer service, and SimplyTrak’s
willingness and ability to support Countrywide’s
special requests. | The Bottom Line
Today Countrywide Freight has greater
control over its vehicle fleet. The Simply‐
Trak system has improved vehicle utilisation,
reduced vehicle costs, decreased
overtime pay, improved staff productivity
and enhanced customer service levels.
Return on Investment
Countrywide calculated the costs of its
investment in software, hardware and
personnel over a 1 year period to quantify
its return from the SimplyTrak deployment.
It identified the following benefit
areas.
• Significant reduction in fuel costs
• Increased utilization through identification
of nearest vehicle and job rerouting
• Decrease in driver overtime
• Decrease in driver downtime
• Reduced maintenance costs through
improved driver behaviour
• Decreased administration costs through
automation of e.g. timesheets
• Improved security over goods in transit
• Removal of two driver requirement for
high value consignments
• Improved customer service and more
accurate delivery times
• Increase in customer satisfaction due to
greater responsiveness
• Redeployment of office staff to other
value generating activities
• Reduced communication costs
• Support for Policy Compliance (Working
Time Directive, Health & Safety) and
Employee Duty of Care |
