why cwr solutions
“Let’s face reality, rail is NOT easy…”
Said to me by a former peer of mine in a brainstorming session, that statement resonated as one of the industry's biggest challenges over the last 20 years of my rail journey. The Benefits of Freight Rail are undeniable. Connecting customers and communities to freight rail can be a real challenge.
I founded CWR Solutions with the intent to provide insights and expert services to make freight rail easier for customers, communities, developers and railroads.
Growing rail carloads is hard work...
There are three ways to grow rail carloads.
- Grow with existing customers
- Land new customers onto your railroad
- Capture a multimodal truck/rail combination, a.k.a a transload customer
From 20 years of experience in the rail business, I can tell you short of a customer gaining share in their existing business lines, over 95% of customers do not have existing truck traffic moving which could convert to rail. So that leaves getting more customers NOT using rail today to use rail in their supply chains. This in turn comes down to a premier Industrial Development program and a premier Transload program.
At CWR Solutions, we offer industry leading Industrial Development and Multimodal (Transload & Intermodal) program designs and ongoing management services to provide you with a complete rail growth program to maximize the use of freight rail in your business and community.
It’s about the Customer…
True for most service industries, but oddly, not as much in railroading. Listen to analysts on an Industry earnings call and you’ll hear questions about Operating Ratio (OR), Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR) Earnings per share (EPS), Trip Plan Compliance (TPC) and other internally focused metrics which miss the perspective of the customer.
The Service Industry is about the customer… customers have choices. They can design their supply chains with or without rail. They can design their supply chains with or without you…
At CWR Solutions we work tirelessly to help you engage your customers and communities to make growing with freight rail easier.
Will your customer(s) endorse you?
Fact: railroads have lost loads since their last volume peak in 2014. Railroads have lost freight share to trucks over the last five years. Why? One reason is a lack of focus on the customer. How confident are you that when a potential new customer does their due diligence and asks your existing customers (it takes about 10 minutes on the internet to identify them) how well you perform that they’ll respond in a way which supports choosing you as their service provider? Customer endorsements are huge in making decisions on where to locate a facility. How do you improve the likelihood of getting that positive endorsement?
At CWR Solutions we will develop a customized customer engagement program for you based on years of best practices so we can help you get that customer endorsement to grow your business.
Retain and Grow your existing business…
Over my 20 year rail journey I worked for and with numerous different rail companies focused on new customer growth. But what about existing business? All businesses experience churn or the cyclical loss of business for multiple life cycle reasons.
This idea of churn can be calculated into a churn rate. Say your churn rate is 10%. That means 10% of your business falls away each year and you need to grow 10% just to stay even. Now, say you can cut your churn rate in half to 5%. What is that reduction in churn worth to you? Reducing churn comes from engaging your customers and becoming a trusted business advisor.
At CWR Solutions we have years of experience developing customer engagement processes to reduce your churn rate, retain your existing business and provide insights on how to retain and grow with your existing customers.
My Class 1 Rail Connection doesn’t help me…
Fact: the Class 1 railroads control over 95% of the rail freight across the North American freight rail network. To the 600+ short line and regional railroads, the Class 1s can unintentionally seem indifferent to a partner railroad‘s abilities and needs. To get a discussion with a Class 1 going, the Class 1 needs to have a reason to talk with you, and you need access to the right people. They need to see why you are relevant and why, given all the needs pulling at them, they should spend time working with you. Making yourself relevant to them is critical.
At CWR Solutions we have the hands-on expertise to develop and customize a Class 1 Engagement program with your specific Class 1 partners to help you connect and grow your franchise.
Hope is not a plan…
Strategy is sometimes defined as a group of plans of intended action designed to accomplish a specific goal or outcome. Current situation assessment is often the most crucial element of executing a strategy – knowing where you are today; your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and challenges and how and where to move given those data points. Developing and implementing a winning rail strategy can be a significant challenge given the multitude of variables and responses of various stakeholders and partners whose motivations are often not known.
At CWR Solutions, we take rail strategy to the next level and provide you with expert insights and frameworks to develop a winning strategy based on the unique traits of your rail franchise.