sim cargo: developing robust onboarding workflows with advanced task management software
In businesses with endless moving parts, keeping on top of the paperwork can be a challenge. As a leading haulage company with financial and ecological processes — and backed by a continent-wide groupage network — German-based sim cargo links over 260 forwarders through over a dozen regional transshipment points (TSPs). As a result, they need solutions that guarantee trusted communication and organization across their entire network.
The challenge: coordinating interconnected transshipment points across Europe
Since its founding in 2020, sim cargo has successfully continued the activities of its founders – ILN and S.T.a.R. – in the market for groupage haulage. Managing their continental TSP network represents quite a challenge for the 50+ employees in the firm’s two offices.
After all, each partner must possess at least a basic understanding of how sim cargo’s system works in practice to maintain the quality of service their partners and customers expect. As the company’s Niklas Thiebes and Julian Loth discovered, getting the message across is not quite as simple as it sounds, especially when they’re flooded with repetitive routine questions.
Using MeisterTask, sim cargo plans a radical overhaul of communication and collaboration methods throughout their partner network and within the company itself, starting with creation of an interactive company handbook. This is designed to speed up daily business and radically reduce onboarding time for new system partners and employees.
The communication effort required to keep these companies working smoothly with sim cargo is enormous. A partner’s interaction with the entire system can break down if basic questions aren’t answered: What do I do if I can’t make a delivery? What do I do when the information given by the haulier isn’t accurate? While we do our best to provide answers in good time, having partners call HQ for what are essentially FAQs wastes everyone’s time and resources. It would be easier if they could find out this information independently.
Niklas Thiebes
Business Development, sim cargo
Following internal discussions, a decision was made to collate all the information that system partners need to know, then to present this in an accessible format – reducing the strain of direct communication with partners. However, assessing the need is only half the battle: the next step toward a knowledge sharing solution was to select a powerful documentation tool. Fortunately, help was soon at hand.
The solution: MeisterTask, an intuitive easy-to-use solution
sim cargo was already a customer of MeisterTask, using the software to manage internal projects to great effect. In early 2021, they learned about a new documentation feature that had just reached the beta development stage in the MeisterTask platform.
An intuitive, easy-to-use project management and documentation software like MeisterTask allowed sim cargo to improve their internal knowledge sharing capabilities. The efficiencies discovered through the MeisterTask platform helped sim cargo reduce onboarding times for their new employees.
As they expanded their trained employee roster, they were able to scale the volume of partners and customers they could service in rapid timeframes. This helped elevate the quality of service and increased their customer satisfaction rates.
We just like the way things are presented in the tools, specifically MeisterTask, which offers excellent usability without the need for too much technical knowledge. When Meister told us about the beta release of Notes, we were more than happy to give it a go. It’s a great mix: the type of tool we really need, delivered by a software provider that we know and trust.
Julian Loth
Management Business Unit, sim cargo
Although they are now well on the way towards building a sleek, easy-to-handle company handbook, MeisterTask was not the first tool that sim cargo tried. Unfortunately, their previous attempts at creating a how-to guide led to some unsatisfactory results.
“With some effort, we did actually manage to get all the information down on paper. However, this came in the form of a massive PDF handbook, which we gave out to partners all in one go. If you’re looking for a very specific piece of information – guidance on regulations, fines, etc. – a document of that nature would have to be incredibly well-structured. Ours wasn’t. In the end, we reverted to word-of-mouth communication and the handbook was less influential than it could have been.”
The difficulties in integrating the company handbook into operative processes led sim cargo to a new idea: complementing the static document with a more dynamic internal wiki. Using MeisterTask’s block and note interlinking features, transforming the static text was surprisingly simple.
“Notes in MeisterTask lends itself well to the wiki format. Alongside the note interlinking and document structuring features, we can create informative content that is easy for people to navigate. The content itself is a bit dry, but info boxes, icons, highlighting etc. bring relevant information to the fore. Roles and permissions have helped greatly too: the handbook is currently being edited by many power users, but we can give others in the company access to selected data with view-only access.”
The outcome: three-month down to two-week onboarding times
In addition to increasing the efficiency of everyday business operations, especially the integration of new partners into the network, there was a further dimension that sim cargo needed to consider. As the company grows, new employees will join the company, which in turn increases the need for efficient alignment within the team.
They understand that the faster new hires can reach full productivity, the more value they can deliver to the business. sim cargo remains confident that MeisterTask will play a key role in the architecture of a more streamlined future.
I remember a conversation that occurred in one of our training sessions for new team members at the system’s headquarters. One of the employees asked, ‘How long will it take us to fully understand the system?’ The answer was three months. Personally, I thought this sounded absurd, but in the present situation, it’s true. However, by consolidating all the need-to-know information using MeisterTask, we reduced the onboarding process to a neat two-week period. The more efficient we make the process, the more productive our team becomes.
Niklas Thiebes
Business Development, sim cargo
sim cargo’s primary locations lie in the heart of Germany (Homberg) and the easily accessible Rhine-region (Sinzig). However, travel expenses for face-to-face training and partner integrations remain expensive, placing greater pressure on the firm to make those trips as productive as possible. Loth sees MeisterTask as a factor in keeping the partner management process under control.
We still want to go and visit the companies in our supplier network, but we would rather not burden ourselves with excessive travel time when it simply isn’t necessary. Staff turnover at some of our customers is something we need to consider too: whenever a new person joins a partner’s team, they’ll need to learn how the cooperation with sim cargo works. Therefore, having the information in an accessible format allows them to ‘learn as they go’ in a vital and smooth transition. MeisterTask helps keep our partner management process under control.
Julian Loth
Management Business Unit, sim cargo
sim cargo has further ambitious plans for working with MeisterTask – namely the documentation of an ambitious software development project: FITs (Future IT sim cargo). The aim of the project, which kicked off at the beginning of 2021, is to single-handedly develop all the software components that are needed by partners in their work with the company: a colossal undertaking that requires intense knowledge of processes and meticulous documentation.
To this end, MeisterTask is an extremely valuable addition to sim cargo’s digital toolkit. FITs was a significant driver in the creation of sim cargo’s internal wiki with MeisterTask, while the tool’s features for project documentation, offers plenty of scope for expansion.
