Margin recovery for a regional freight forwarder
Revenue up three years running. Profit down two of them.
A freight forwarder moving steady volume on established lanes had convinced itself it had a cost problem. It didn't. It had a pricing problem hidden by an average — a handful of large accounts were being quoted at rates that hadn't been revisited since fuel and handling costs moved underneath them, and the profitable lanes were subsidising them invisibly.
- Client
- Regional freight forwarder, ~90 staff
- Engagement
- 14-week diagnostic and implementation
- Market
- Gulf and South Asia lanes
- Delivered
- 2024
What we walked into
- Revenue had grown three years running while net profit fell in two of them.
- Quoting was done from a rate sheet nobody had rebuilt since costs shifted.
- Nobody could say which lanes or accounts made money at the shipment level.
- Leadership assumed the answer was headcount reduction.
What we actually did
Rebuild the unit economics
We rebuilt eighteen months of shipments into a per-lane, per-account contribution model — landed cost against realised price, with handling, demurrage, and rework allocated where they actually occurred rather than smeared across the book.
Find where the money leaked
Four accounts, all long-standing and all considered strategic, were being served below cost. Two lanes carried the entire book. The rate sheet had drifted roughly eleven percent behind cost without a single deliberate decision.
Re-price without losing the book
Rather than a blanket increase, we sequenced renegotiations by account leverage and contract date, with a walk-away number set in advance for each. Leadership rehearsed the difficult conversations before having them.
Make it stick
Quoting moved into the CRM with cost floors enforced at entry, so a below-floor quote now requires a deliberate override with a name attached rather than happening by accident.
What changed
- +9.4pts
- Gross margin recovered
- 96%
- Of the book retained through re-pricing
- 0
- Redundancies required
- 14 wks
- Diagnostic to implemented pricing
- Margin recovered without the headcount cut leadership had assumed was coming.
- Per-shipment contribution visible to the commercial team at quoting time.
- Below-cost quotes became an explicit, attributable decision rather than a default.
- Two loss-making accounts exited deliberately, with the capacity redeployed to profitable lanes.
Client identity is withheld under confidentiality. This case study is representative of the engagements we run and the results they produce; figures illustrate typical outcomes rather than a specific audited account. We're happy to discuss specifics, and arrange references, on a call.
The engagements behind this work
Run-Stage Operations
Embedded operational support for businesses already in motion.
Growth & Strategy
Sharpen the strategy, focus the team, and unlock the next stage of growth.
CRM Management
Set up, tune, and operate your CRM so it actually drives revenue.
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