At a Glance
- A leading provider of integrated logistics solutions in Brazil faced significant back-office inefficiencies, including high administrative costs, process bottlenecks, and inconsistent workflow execution.
- Renoir partnered with the client to implement a comprehensive transformation focusing on process maturity, governance, Business Intelligence integration, and standardisation.
- This initiative resulted in significant efficiency improvements across the client’s back-office operations. This case study examines the challenges faced by the client and how Renoir assisted in achieving operational excellence.
Key results
22
management areas mapped, prioritising opportunities based on return potential.
Maturity Matrix
was applied to assess the alignment between business needs and operational execution
Workload distribution gaps
identified, optimising resource allocation and cost efficiency
Background
The transportation network in Brazil is heavily reliant on roads, which account for about 60% of cargo transport. However, many roads are poorly maintained, increasing shipping costs, reducing delivery speed, and causing high rates of traffic accidents and cargo theft.
Railways and waterways are underdeveloped relative to the country’s size, with only 30,000 km of railways and 14,000 km of waterways compared to 214,000 km of roads (mostly paved but in poor condition). Despite these challenges, the logistics market is growing, with logistics costs expected to grow at a CAGR of 0.91% from 2025 to 2029, reaching about US$260.77 billion by 2029. Container port traffic is also projected to be 12.42 million TEU in 2025.
Specialising in fleet management, cargo transportation, and operational support, the client operates across multiple industries, ensuring seamless and efficient supply chain management. The client’s rapid growth had meant that previously established processes had stagnated and needed updating and streamlining to ensure efficiency.
Analysis
The project was undertaken because the client identified a need to optimise its back-office processes to enhance operational efficiency, reduce redundancies, and improve the maturity of its management structures.
The client faced significant inefficiencies, leading to high administrative costs, process bottlenecks, and inconsistent workflow execution. A comprehensive diagnostic assessment, evaluating task distribution, process maturity, and workload management across 22 management areas like Finance, Administration, and Asset Management, revealed key challenges.
The assessment applied a Maturity Matrix to evaluate the alignment between business needs and operational execution, uncovering gaps in task standardisation, excessive manual interventions, and a lack of centralised monitoring systems. Furthermore, using the SIPOC (Suppliers, Inputs, Process, Outputs, Customers) methodology to map core business activities highlighted a critical finding: the fragmentation of workload across different teams, resulting in inefficiencies in task allocation and accountability gaps.
The analysis also identified opportunities to integrate a Business Intelligence (BI) system to monitor process performance and provide real-time data for decision-making.
These insights formed the basis for a structured implementation roadmap focusing on automation, governance improvements, and process reengineering.
Project Approach
Renoir structured the back-office transformation strategy around three key pillars:
- The first pillar focused on Process Maturity & Governance, implementing a structured governance model aligned with strategic goals.
- The second pillar involved Business Intelligence (BI) Integration, developing a data-driven approach for tracking performance and optimising workload distribution.
- The third pillar addressed Standardisation & Efficiency Gains, applying SIPOC methodology to define process responsibilities, eliminate redundancies, and ensure consistency.
To guide the initiative, a customised opportunity ranking system was created, prioritising initiatives based on their expected return to ensure high-impact changes were addressed first. The approach also emphasised cross-functional collaboration, actively involving department leaders in the transformation process.
“We were able to identify all the workload of our employees, redundancies, and manual activities that can be automated, generating inputs for a digital transformation.”
—Executive Manager of People
Optimise Subcontractor Management and Progress Tracking
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“This journey was important because we revisited processes that were stagnated in a previous model, which, with the rapid growth of our company, needed to be updated and streamlined, ensuring our efficiency.”
—Administrative Director
Implementation
During the implementation phase, efforts focused on improving workload efficiency, standardising processes, and using data to support better decision-making.
1. Workload Mapping & Optimisation
A detailed review of tasks across administrative functions revealed overlaps and inefficiencies. Renoir helped the client redistribute work more effectively and introduced a simulator tool to match workforce capacity with demand. This helped reduce bottlenecks and improve day-to-day operations.
2. Centralised Process Governance
A clear governance model was introduced to ensure greater accountability and consistency. This allowed teams to follow structured workflows and execute tasks more efficiently.
3. Maturity Assessment & Standardisation
Key operational areas were assessed using a maturity matrix to understand process compliance and effectiveness. Based on the findings, standard operating procedures (SOPs) and process blueprints were developed to guide employees and reduce variability in task execution.
4. Business Intelligence (BI) System Deployment
A BI dashboard was designed to track task execution, resource use, and operational KPIs in real time. This allowed managers to quickly adjust team assignments and improved visibility across departments. All data was integrated into a single system, providing one source of truth for operational insights.
5. Cultural & Organisational Alignment
Training and coaching sessions supported employees through the transition. A performance monitoring framework was established to align operations with business goals, and a regular audit mechanism was implemented to sustain improvements and prevent regression.
“We aligned our budgetary strategy with the new organizational model, ensuring that processes are met within the agreed service levels.”
—CFO
Results
The project successfully delivered significant efficiency improvements across the client’s back-office operations. The introduction of the BI system proved crucial, enabling real-time performance tracking that significantly improved visibility and decision-making capabilities.
Process standardisation, alongside workload optimisation initiatives, effectively reduced administrative inefficiencies, leading to better resource utilisation and enhanced cost control. Furthermore, the transformation established a scalable governance framework, which strategically positions the client for sustainable operational excellence and supports long-term business growth.
*We have intentionally omitted client-specific details to maintain strict confidentiality.
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