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Insights · Case study
A multi-regional freight and logistics operator North America 14 months Strategy & Operations

Redesigning a freight network around the lanes that actually pay

A top-ten regional carrier was growing revenue and shrinking margin. We rebuilt the network around lane-level economics — and stayed through two quarters of execution to prove the new model in the P&L.

+310 bps
operating-margin improvement, audited across the following two fiscal quarters
22%
of the lane portfolio repriced or exited within nine months
2 of 31
terminals consolidated — far fewer than the initial board hypothesis, because the model showed the problem was pricing, not footprint
0
members of the frontline dispatch leadership lost during the change

The situation

Two decades of customer-by-customer growth had produced a network nobody had designed: 40% of lanes were unprofitable on a fully-loaded basis, but the reporting stack — built around regional totals — couldn't see it. Volume incentives were pushing the sales organization toward exactly the freight the network handled worst.

What we did

A joint team of one Fresnaye partner, two principals, and the client's own pricing and operations leads built a lane-level economic model from raw movement data, then redesigned the terminal footprint, pricing floors, and sales incentives around it. No recommendation entered the deck until operations had confirmed it survived a Tuesday-morning dispatch meeting.

“The lane model ended four years of argument in one meeting. Everyone was suddenly looking at the same number.”
— Chief Operating Officer

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