Driving change in logistics with Azure

Toll Group is a global freight forwarding, transport and logistics provider with over 130 years of experience solving shipping, transport and supply chain challenges for its customers. This Australian-based subsidiary of Japan Post employs over 16,000 people across 500 sites in 27 markets and boasts a forwarding network that spans 150 countries and supports over 20,000 customers.

Toll Group is an Australian-based subsidiary of Japan Post with over 130 years of  experience and the know-how to offer reliable transportation, warehousing and logistics services as one of the top ten APAC contract logistics providers.

However, with 500 sites and a global business, the company’s fragmented data storage  and processing were becoming difficult to manage. The costly legacy system required specialist expertise to access and operate, with only a few people being able to get data from its siloed sections.

Toll Group needed a coherent and reliable data management solution that would focus on its global logistics operations and the company’s corporate arm. It had to bring together all the separate systems such as transport management, warehouse  management and finance into one place where data could be stored, processed and managed whilst fulfilling the company’s data protection requirements.

Microsoft Azure was chosen as the best repository, but Toll Group was still missing the right partner to help with creating a modern data platform, data migration and reporting frameworks. On Microsoft’s recommendation, the company reached out to Fujitsu Data & AI.

Fujitsu worked with Microsoft and Toll Group to create a modern data platform by migrating several years’ worth of data from the legacy platform to the cloud. It delivered all the software processes required for this task and built the framework necessary for monitoring the quality of the data coming into the platform, easy maintenance of the pipelines and any future upgrades. This effort was combined with the creation of bespoke reporting solutions for the new databases.

The relationship forged with Fujitsu Data & AI allowed Toll Group to learn throughout the process and adopt more efficient ways of working. It also proved to be a trusted and reliable partner. Peter McAllister, Program Manager at Toll Group comments:  “Implementation journeys are never smooth, so the point is to have a partner that can  help you navigate the bumps and potholes. And one of the critical things that we get  from Fujitsu is a partnership from the problem stage, figuring out how we can solve issues together. I also know that if I pick up the phone and ask for five minutes of advice, I’ll get that. That is so valuable to us as a customer.”

The solution applies globally but is managed and facilitated out of the Australian head office and its Indian Technology Centre. In fact, the collaboration and the engagement between the separate offices was a huge success. “The platforms enable us to build data communities,” says Mike Chatt, IT Director and CTO at Toll Group. “And that’s really key to the self-serve model we wanted to get.”

Toll Group now has a modern data platform located securely in the cloud, with reliable and simple-to-use reporting solutions as well as a calable design. “We have the data in the right place, securely controlled and managed, but available to people that need to  use it quickly and easily,” says McAllister. “We also engineered our solution to be ready for private data sources so that we can now start to pull data from other organisations.” 

As a result, the solution is much more than just a repository. It is also a way to prepare for the next steps. “It’s about engineering for the future,” says McAllister. “We were always looking backwards. Now, we can get a full view of our business, talk about it, interpret it and discuss where we want to go moving forward. That’s pretty amazing for us.”

The transformation also removed a huge source of frustration for many employees. “The feedback from the people who couldn’t develop reports before—or did everything in Excel—has been phenomenal,” says McAllister. “People are able to access and use the data in a way that they couldn’t before. Speeding up processes and automating them as much as we can means that suddenly people can be analysts. And they can do their job better with greater impact on the business in the same eight hours.”

The company’s legacy solution was retired, immediately reducing the costs of managing data by over 50%. Moreover, the company can be more confident in its digital security. “We can now put in tools across the board for data loss prevention,” says Chatt. “So not only is it about building data capability, streamlining costs and providing better insights for customers, it’s also about securing our data.”

Fujitsu Data & AI enabled Toll Group to have all its information in one place, organised, easily accessible, future-proof and secure. Where only a handful of people were able to access the data and take days to compile a report in the past, almost everyone can now be a data expert and create a report in minutes. The solution ticks all the boxes. McAllister comments: “We got the outcome we needed, at the cost we were expecting and in the timeframe we were after. This is rare.”

Furthermore, the agile approach and the methodologies that Fujitsu Data & AI uses to create modern data platforms were studied and adopted for a more efficient future. Toll Group is planning to keep building on the solution, which was made much easier by Fujitsu having designed the modern data platform for easy maintenance and future upgrades. “We’re continuing to build our data science capabilities and bring them into
the platform,” says Chatt. “This is the next stage for us, moving into predictive analytics. There’s so much opportunity for us, that we have never had before, in looking at future predictions. And although the self-service portal is a continued investment for us, we now have the capability to do it ourselves.”

With the new ways of working and the company’s own abilities enhanced, Toll Group has confidence in its tools and skills. “Projects and teams are transitory and the team and the project that has come together here has worked really well,” says McAllister. “But when the next challenge comes up, I know the team that I want to reach out to who can take us forward."