Cardinal · North America
How Cardinal lifted profitability by pricing with confidence
Cardinal's pricing desk was rebuilding the same rate sheets every month. Centralising them freed up the team and made margin visible per lane.
“We stopped arguing about which spreadsheet was right and started talking about which lanes were worth chasing.”
Where they started
Cardinal ran a capable pricing team on a stack of shared workbooks. Each carrier amendment meant a manual update, and each update introduced a small risk that somebody quoted from an older copy.
Sales knew the drill: send the enquiry to pricing, wait, chase. On busy lanes that wait was long enough for customers to go elsewhere.
What changed
All carrier contracts were ingested into a single repository with structured charges and validity dates. Margin rules were written once and applied automatically, so sales could quote standard lanes without a handoff.
The pricing team moved from data entry to carrier negotiation — a shift they describe as the real return on the project.
Where they are now
Quote turnaround on core lanes is measured in minutes. Margin is reviewed weekly per trade rather than discovered at month end, and profitability improved by roughly four percent within two quarters.
See Freight Puzzle with your own rates
Bring a handful of your carrier contracts to the call. We'll load them, quote a live shipment, and you can judge the difference for yourself.