Trimble roundtable focuses on supply chain resilience

Trust and stakeholders are the real barriers to transformation

“Transformation is hard in the daily operations. It is not because of the technology. It is actually because of the amount of stakeholders involved and also the data silos that are there,” said Anne Lielahti, who leads customer experience for Trimble’s Transportation business. “Change is hard. So there is definitely also resistance to change.”

Consider Nestlé, which manages approximately 4 million shipments annually across a highly fragmented setup with different systems and processes in various countries. Limited visibility made coordination difficult both internally and with carriers.

“Together with Nestlé we moved them to a global platform. We integrated to their IT landscape and most importantly what we did is that we enabled the collaboration in that huge global network,” Lielahti said. The result was fewer manual steps, faster coordination with carriers and better visibility across regions. Another critical benefit was faster reaction times when disruptions hit.

The trust barrier was a different challenge at Asics, where manual freight auditing processes had created skepticism about automation. The company’s team feared losing control.

“Instead of them losing control they actually did gain control,” Lielahti said. “It was more transparency, it was better cost control and also more time for actually the high-value work with their customers.”

Going from a system of record to system of action

“Where we anchor Trimble and Transporeon solutions is we are the system of action,” said Bernhard Schmaldienst, who leads product and engineering. “Those companies come out again on top that just do not know only what happened — that was the rate — but how that rate got along, like how did the negotiation go, who submitted what, when, where is the market right now, should I change something.”

This shift allows for real-time adjustments: rerouting trucks, swapping carriers or automatically rebooking time slots. The value compounds across the network.

“This is a classical scenario where one plus one can be three,” Schmaldienst said. “If you nail it for yourself then that is fine and with a network you can get approximately up to two, but you can never go full scale without really sharing there.”

Benchmarking data is fully anonymized, requiring multiple data sources before aggregation to ensure competitive information remains protected.

Tackling freight fraud and geopolitical disruptions

On fraud, Pfister described Trimble’s approach: vetting companies before they participate in an RFQ or tender “to make sure that these are real companies.” Real-time visibility alerts operators to abnormal behavior such as unexpected detours.

Regarding current market conditions, Schmaldienst noted that carrier rejection rates are climbing — “typically the earlier indicator of saying like yeah I cannot commit to my contracted loads to the same extent that I want to anymore.” He predicted capacity challenges would peak in May, though he acknowledged the situation remains fluid.

“We have not seen the spike yet and that will continue,” Schmaldienst said. “The situation can change daily but in the current trend scenario we will see that situation happening specifically in May.”

North America vs. Europe: bridging logistics differences

“Trimble from a backstory brought along this amazing carrier network, Transporeon, the shipper piece of it,” Schmaldienst said. “And the key item here was bringing those together technically from an interoperability perspective and sharing that data as a first piece.”

One key difference is market structure. The prevalence of freight brokerage is greater in the United States compared to Europe, where a larger number of smaller carriers deal directly with shippers. Pfister noted that regulatory fragmentation also creates complexity.

“In the US some standards are more widely adopted,” Pfister said. “You have the DOT that provides fuel indications. In Europe you have 26 different types of DOTs because every country does this differently.”

Cultural approaches to technology adoption also differ. Schmaldienst observed a “way bigger openness in the US to adopt changes on the technological frontier than there is in Europe.”

Practical advice on using data to build resilience

For companies evaluating data strategies, Schmaldienst offered direct guidance: “Pick your pain points or think about where you can benefit most by changing behavior and then just pick that item.”

Lielahti emphasized the importance of aligning stakeholders before launching digital transformation initiatives.

“We need to make sure that everyone understands and has the same understanding what is the problem we are here to solve,” Lielahti said. She added that companies should carefully map their current “as-is” processes, which often reveal numerous exceptions.

The modular “pay what you use” approach eliminates massive upfront investments. “You get started and basically you pay when you get the value extracted from our solution,” Schmaldienst said. “We are not in there for long implementations that are heavy. We want quick implementations. We want you to have transactions that drive value for you.”