Introduction
A global healthcare leader partnered with JBF Consulting for an independent capability assessment of its transportation management system (“TMS”) and logistics ecosystem. The company relied on a proprietary TMS to manage its extensive U.S. medical distribution network and needed to determine whether its current technology could support future growth and emerging AI driven capabilities.
Industry
Health Services and Products
Engagement Scope
Transportation Capability Assessment + AI Readiness Evaluation
Results
- Clear view of current TMS adoption and system fit for future growth
- High level business requirements and a targeted gap analysis
- Market benchmarking against leading software vendors to inform strategy
- A confident transition to business case and roadmap development, enabling confident ongoing investment in proprietary solution
Executive Summary
A global healthcare leader needed to ensure its transportation technology ecosystem could scale to meet evolving business demands. With logistics playing a critical role in connecting patients, providers, and manufacturers, the company required an objective assessment of its proprietary TMS versus leading commercial alternatives to safeguard operational excellence and future readiness.
JBF Consulting delivered an objective, market-informed assessment, benchmarking capabilities against industry best practices and leading third-party solutions. This approach provided clear, actionable insights that enabled leadership to understand critical gaps and opportunities for improvement. As a result, executives gained the confidence to make informed decisions about future technology investments, balancing operational needs and long-term growth.
"JBF gave us objective clarity on our strengths and technology gaps, focusing on what matters most for our business.”
Customer Profile
As a healthcare services and products company operating in more than 30 countries with more than $200 billion in annual revenue, the company plays a critical role in connecting patients, providers, payers, and manufacturers. Its Medical Segment manages an extensive U.S. distribution network that delivers products daily to hospitals, pharmacies, and care facilities nationwide. The company’s extensive freight spend and service requirements require advanced technology to optimize transportation planning, visibility, and settlement. The TMS assessment focused on supporting this medical distribution network and evaluating scalability for global trade.
The Challenge
With a critical role in connecting patients, providers, and manufacturers, the company’s leadership recognized the stakes: Could their existing systems deliver on evolving business mandates, or were there hidden gaps that could threaten operational performance and scalability? They sought an unbiased, data-driven evaluation to cut through vendor marketing and internal assumptions and to benchmark their capabilities against industry best practices.
The company sought a neutral partner to conduct an unbiased, holistic review of current systems, benchmarked against commercially available software solutions, and provide perspective on maturity and opportunities.
"JBF cut through internal assumptions. The focus on actionable insights rather than one-size-fits-all was what we needed.”
The Solution
JBF Consulting deployed its proven rapid assessment methodology, combining stakeholder interviews, process reviews, and system utilization analysis. The focus was to provide a clear, objective snapshot of current capabilities, identify material functional gaps, and clarify whether challenges stemmed from true technology limitations or from process and adoption barriers. Key elements included:
- Mapping business goals to operational capabilities: Ensuring technology capabilities were aligned with strategic objectives.
- System fit and scalability analysis: Evaluating whether the proprietary TMS could support future growth and complexity.
- Market benchmarking: Providing critical context on whether observed gaps were unique or industry wide in commercially available software.
- AI readiness assessment: Evaluating data architecture and automation capabilities against emerging AI use cases relevant to healthcare distribution, agentic automation, predictive insights and decision support.
- Actionable recommendations: Prioritizing immediate improvement opportunities and clarifying the path forward.
Results and Impact
The assessment delivered immediate value by dispelling uncertainty around the company’s technology fit. JBF’s unbiased findings enabled leadership to:
- Gain confidence in decision-making: The assessment provided clear, data-driven insights, allowing executives to have capability clarity as part of the decision to invest further or go to market for commercially available software.
- Unlock quick wins: The assessment surfaced targeted opportunities for process improvement and system optimization, prioritizing capability gaps relative to potential business impact.
- Protect investment: Leadership was able to focus on maximizing the value of existing technology, rather than defaulting to a costly system replacement.
- Informed AI strategy: A clear-eyed view of AI readiness gaps and near-term opportunities, enabling prioritization of automation investments before committing to an AI platform direction.
Lessons Learned and Next Steps
The engagement underscored the critical importance of conducting objective, market-informed assessments to weigh internal technology investments against third-party alternatives. Only through rigorous, unbiased analysis can organizations determine whether proprietary or commercial solutions best meet immediate operational needs while also scaling to support future growth and complexity. Mapping technology capabilities directly to prioritized business outcomes ensures that investments are aligned to durable, measurable value.
As a next step, we completed a comprehensive, scenario-based ROI model to quantify the impact of closing high-priority capability gaps internally and with third-party solutions. This approach assessed incremental investments required for both proprietary and third-party options, enabling leadership to make confident, data-driven decisions that balance cost, risk, and long-term business performance.
Looking to strengthen your logistics technology strategy? Contact us today to explore how our tailored assessments can deliver measurable results for your network.
Email us at contact@jbf-consulting.com
