Ensto is an international family-owned electronics manufacturer that develops sustainable solutions for electricity distribution, employing around 800 people across Europe, North America, and Asia. Their line and cable accessories business ships nearly 100 packages a day from a central warehouse in Estonia to customers worldwide. Here's how they manage it all with Cargoson's transport management software.

A referral led to faster TMS implementation

When Ensto was planning to start road freight tendering, they turned to their network for references. "We were speaking with other companies near us to get some references," explains Lilli Nieminen, Group Logistics Manager at Ensto. The conversation revealed a common struggle: managing bookings across multiple systems with different forwarders was demanding and time-consuming.

That's when Cargoson came up.
"A company we were benchmarking suggested trying Cargoson, so we can have everything under one roof," Nieminen recalls. "Cargoson was affordable and fast to implement. So we decided to go for it."

A previous TMS failed. Cargoson was live in weeks.

This wasn't Ensto's first attempt at a TMS. "We tried to implement another TMS a few years ago," Nieminen recalls. "That integration never flew. It was time-consuming... we spent a lot of money, and then we ended the project because the system was never successfully taken into use and integrated with our ERP." 
 

Easy to integrate, fast to implement

The contrast with Cargoson was stark. "The benefit for Cargoson is that it's cheap to implement, and it's fast. You don't need a lot of resources," she says. 

Really easy to integrate with your ERP, and all the forwarders needed are there. If new integrations between Cargoson and the forwarder are needed, Cargoson will handle it. It's very straightforward.

Seeing everything in one place instead of juggling multiple systems

For Remo Maimets, Local Warehouse Manager in Estonia, the switch to Cargoson's transport management software made an immediate difference.

"The main benefit we got from Cargoson was the better overview," he says. "We see basically all the shipments in one portal."

Before Cargoson, the team used direct connections to individual forwarders, receiving labels by email and tracking shipments on separate carrier websites. "We had to go to the forwarder tracking system or web page," Maimets explains about the old process.

The centralised view changed how the entire team works. "Customer service can themselves go to the system and look for tracking and proof of deliveries," Nieminen notes. "It's reduced internal calls and emailing quite a lot."

Customer service can themselves go to the system and look for tracking and proof of deliveries. It's reduced internal calls and emailing quite a lot.

Quoting made simpler

Getting quotes from multiple carriers used to be time-consuming. "In the past, we were dealing with a lot of emails," Maimets explains.

We had to send out three to 10 emails and got the same amount of answers, and then filter through them and do it again.

Now the process is different. "We can get the prices directly into Cargoson, so it's much easier to handle it," he says. The pricing remains competitive with what they received through email, but the administrative burden has dropped significantly.

Statistics that support tendering

For Nieminen, who oversees group supply chain operations, the statistics features provide valuable oversight. "You get quite a good grip on costs, and you can search for different things," she says.

The data has practical applications beyond daily operations. "For example, this year we will start the tendering process again. We can take out the statistics from Cargoson for different routes," Nieminen explains. "Previously, we had to ask the forwarder for the Excel files and combine them together."

Making Cargoson compatibility a requirement for carriers

Three years into using the platform, Ensto has made it a standard part of their carrier selection process. "Now, when we do the tendering, the requirement is that the partner is Cargoson compatible," Nieminen says. "Partners need to be able to have integration with Cargoson."

When one carrier's integration wasn't providing complete data updates, Ensto gave them feedback. "They are actually now working on this based on our feedback," Nieminen notes. "Because we lose the value if not all the data is there."

For Nieminen, the alternative, working with multiple carrier portals, isn't efficient. 

The forwarders always advertise their system for shipment tracking. This is not efficient practice, as we might have several carriers and you need to look for data in different systems.

Three years with Cargoson transport management software

Today, nearly 100 shipments leave Ensto's Estonian warehouse every day, all managed through one platform. ERP integration was straightforward. Every carrier Ensto needed was already available, and when new integrations are needed, Cargoson handles them. Quotes that used to take 10 emails now happen in minutes. Customer service checks tracking themselves instead of calling logistics. And when it's time to select carriers, Cargoson compatibility is on the requirements list. Less time managing logistics means more time focused on what Ensto actually does: delivering the components that keep electricity grids running reliably.


Ensto is one of 500+ manufacturers managing freight through Cargoson. Want to see how it works with your carriers and shipment types?