THE CHALLENGE
Decentralised processes harming the ability to scale
In 2018, Nestlé set itself a daunting challenge – to transform its disparate transportation processes around the world into a single, unified whole.
The Transportation Hubs (T-Hub) Program comprised four key components: Procure, Plan, Execute, Settle.
PROCURE
PLAN
EXECUTE
SETTLE
It aimed to:
To achieve these ambitious goals effectively, there were multiple challenges to address and overcome.
Global operations were decentralised, deploying separate technologies in different territories with no central standard. As the company grew, its existing bespoke portal for carriers proved to be insufficient for all territories, often forcing the company to rely on dated manual processes, individual point-to-point integrations and communications with carriers.
These scenarios ran the risk of fostering inconsistency, unreliability and potential delays. In addition to the absence of central control and decision-making capability, Nestlé was hindering its ability to scale effectively for global operation, while severely limiting both communication with carriers and the overall visibility of transportation operations.
Without full visibility, it would have been very difficult to identify and improve processes needed to achieve the safety, sustainability and efficiency targets set by the T-Hub programme.
Nestlé has always enjoyed strong internal planning capabilities, but it wanted more scalable, seamless communication with carriers. This was not just about updated functionalities—it was also about communication and forging relationships.
The company set out to source a collaboration tool that would be trusted globally by carriers and, crucially, could be integrated into existing IT systems via EDI, without causing any slow or costly disruptions to the current business operations of their transportation partners.
© 2025 Trimble Inc.
© 2025 Trimble Inc.