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HOW POLARIS TRANSPORTATION GROUP CONTINUES TO “RAISE THE BAR” WITH A CLEAR VISION
H
ow does a rapidly evolving transportation company maintain the personal customer service and care of a boutique operation?
Under the lead of Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Dave Brajkovich, Polaris has implemented an extensive list of digital initiatives. This began with adopting robotics – more specifically robotic process automation – for running systems in the background that would otherwise require intensive data entry labour. Now, approximately 80% of the company’s shipping documentation processing is automated.
Polaris Transportation Group President and CEO, Dave Cox joined his family-owned business in 1998 and has since been overseeing its ongoing growth and success. Founded in 1994 by his parents, Larry (1945-2017) and Geri Cox, Polaris originally served as a regional freight In 2019, Polaris opened an entire division dedicated to technology broker trusted for delivering personal, professional services to their development, NorthStar Digital Solutions (NDS), who launched the customers. FR8Focus application in 2022. Polaris is now one of Canada’s largest privately held LTL carriers. Known as #CrossBorderPros, they transport hundreds of thousands of shipments between Canada and the USA every year, offering competitive transit times including next-day services to and from Toronto and select USA cities. Their leadership team has established a unified vision honouring its fundamental values in the form of a Brand Promise – which is shared throughout all departments and divisions of the company:
In collaboration with Radaro, FR8Focus was custom-built to alleviate operational pain-points in the LTL and TL marketspace by “Connecting the road to the back office.” It offers real-time fleet and freight visibility while automating shipment document processing and unifying communications between the driver, dispatch, office and end customer.
“FR8Focus delivers internal and external solutions for carriers with speed, accuracy and simplicity. It consolidates all order data for shippers, consignees, brokers and clients to access in one place,” “To provide industry-best cross border supply chain solutions & customer Brajkovich explains. Integrating FR8Focus into Polaris’ operations has experiences through innovation and technological development while relieved employees from repetitive manual tasks so they can tend to more enriching work. Dave Cox shares, “We provide a more convenient focusing on our people, customers and communities.” shipping experience for our clientele. At the same time, we’re making INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT jobs for our Polaris people more fulfilling.”
Polaris has maintained steady growth since initially serving as a preferred carrier for a small group of regional customers, “We’ve always been favoured for being agile and attentive,” Dave Cox recalls. With continued expansion, they needed to ensure they could continue taking the same personalized approach with every customer. Their focus shifted toward technology. Cox comments, “We were thinking Next Generation Transportation. We knew technology was the answer and would allow us to scale up our business while actually improving our ability to serve.” He continues, “Our shift to a more digital and automated operation has pushed us forward and has become a real differentiator for us.”
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INSIDE Logistics FE B R UARY 2023
2/14/2023 3:55:45 PM