Fast-Paced Market Requires Evolution from Manual to Automated Processes
Since opening its first station in 1961, Allstates WorldCargo has earned a national and international reputation for excellence in customer service and satisfaction. The Allstates WorldCargo team is focused on leveraging its strengths in transportation and logistics to promote strategic solutions for customers.
According to Kendra Tanner, President & CEO of Allstates WorldCargo, one key to its success has been ensuring the business can scale its credit-to-cash management in support of rapid growth. Whether it’s priority air shipments, door-to-door deliveries, or ocean transportation, the fast pace and precision-oriented nature of the company’s services require that efficiency and accuracy in making credit decisions for prospective customers is a top priority.
To achieve this, Allstates WorldCargo had to evolve how its finance team operated. Over the past several years, as the company experienced rapid growth, it has leveraged D&B Finance Analytics Credit Intelligence (D&B Finance Analytics) to streamline and automate its credit and customer risk management processes. “We needed resources such as D&B Finance Analytics to help us scale the growth of the company and mitigate risk along the way,” Tanner explained.
Before using D&B Finance Analytics, Allstates WorldCargo had some outdated processes which they realized could benefit from automation. For example, credit application forms were emailed to a potential customer to fill out and send back. Only limited information was covered. Applicants were often hesitant to put information on a piece of paper and then fax or email it. The team also realized that it needed a better tool to make informed credit decisions, not just rely on the judgement of one or two people. The company had been using Dun & Bradstreet credit reports but were not putting that data into a quantifiable process.
“D&B Finance Analytics allowed us to automate our credit application processes, make more informed credit decisions and streamline our collections process” explained Tanner, who has more than 21 years of service across a variety of leadership roles with the company. “This has resulted in better credit decision-making on whether we should extend credit, how much we should extend, and how long we should extend it.”
Automation and Data-Driven Decisioning Allows Streamlined Credit Review and Approval Process
The Allstates WorldCargo team now uses an online credit application, supported by D&B Finance Analytics. Applicants for credit provide relevant information online and avoid time-consuming entry in emails and forms. “We were really interested in the credit application process and the D&B solutions allowed us to make some application fields mandatory, so the customer couldn’t move to the next level if they didn’t provide us with the information that we needed,” Tanner explained. “That was critical. It saved a lot of time going back and forth with the customer.”
As one example, by having the application require the name of the Allstates WorldCargo sales representative, the credit team can easily locate the history of all relations with the customer. “As we have 22 offices throughout the U.S., we may not know the specific customer who is making an application. With new, mandatory fields, we instantly know with whom to follow up if we have any kinds of questions about the opportunity. So, we love that,” Tanner said.
The online form also ensures applicants accept terms and conditions, and in turn creates a centralized database of the application along with the agreed terms and conditions. Previously, the customer had to sign both the credit application and the terms and conditions. “We now have an electronic, all-in-one signature acceptance, which is great whenever you have to present information to regulatory authorities,” Tanner explained.
Beyond the application process, once Allstates WorldCargo began to understand the scoring algorithms used by D&B Finance Analytics, it was able to become more advanced in setting up the system with their own inputs. “We're getting better informed decisions, allowing us to scale our business and expedite our decision-making process.” Instead of relying on one or two individuals to make a credit decision, frontline team members now make decisions based on insights from D&B Finance Analytics. The resulting streamlined credit review and approval process has allowed the company to onboard opportunities with customers at a rapid pace, which they feel brings them a competitive advantage in the market.
Lowering Days Sales Outstanding, Reducing Headcount and Managing Debt
When it comes to collections, the Allstates WorldCargo collections team relies on a visual dashboard enabled by Dun & Bradstreet to markedly improve its effectiveness. “The dashboard gives us visuals of where we need to be focusing for our daily collections efforts,” Tanner said. “The team can go right to the high-profile accounts that needs the most collections effort, increasing efficiency. If we didn't have the dashboards, we'd probably have to go back to sorting Excel spreadsheets - a much more manual process, which would then require probably more people to keep our aging in sync with our goals.”
Beyond the collections dashboard, D&B Finance Analytics monitors aging accounts, sending an alert anytime there is any kind of credit decline or financial risk, allowing the team to be proactive. “A customer with aging invoices experiencing financial decline may indicate a high risk for bad debt. We can make informed decisions because of those alerts. That has been an incredible resource to us,” said Tanner, “It’s crucial – especially during uncertain times – to have a solution that helps us be ahead of the game.”
Allstates WorldCargo centralized their finance operations towards the end of 2022. The new team did not have the choice of working with older processes. Everything was based around the new automated processes supported by D&B Finance Analytics.
“At our last board meeting, we reported that in the latest quarter, DSO was reduced significantly from the previous quarter. The quarter over quarter DSO reduction is important because that was achieved by the new team using D&B Finance Analytics, which obviously contributed to some of that success. We were also able to reduce headcount as result of the automation D&B Finance Analytics brought us,” explained Tanner.
Running the Business and Feeling Supported
“I couldn’t imagine us not having D&B Finance Analytics Credit Intelligence, and highly recommend it,” said Tanner. “D&B onboarded the solution on time, and the training was there. After-sales support was there. And anytime there is any kind of change or something that we want to do, D&B continues to support us.”
While the solution offers the ability for Allstates WorldCargo to make some changes themselves, there are times they need support. “The customer service support has been phenomenal. The entire D&B team has been phenomenal in responding.”
“D&B Finance Analytics has helped us with automation; it’s improved our DSO with our customers; and it’s helped us expedite the onboarding of new business,” Tanner said. “Those three benefits bring a lot of value to the business. As the CEO of my company, I couldn’t imagine running the business without Dun & Bradstreet solutions and services.”
Learn more about D&B Finance Analytics.
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