Breaking the 3PL Barrier: How Tiger Brands Unlocked R300M in Supply Chain Value

19 June 2026 · Case Studies

What happens when one of Africa’s largest FMCG manufacturers rethinks the way its transport network is managed?

For Tiger Brands, the answer was a decade-long logistics transformation that unlocked over R300 million in supply chain value.

In this case study, we unpack how Transnova helped Tiger Brands move beyond the limitations of a single 3PL model, introducing greater visibility, flexibility and control across a complex national distribution network.

Read the full case study to see how the right blend of technology, people and process helped turn transport from a cost centre into a strategic advantage.

From Complexity to Control: Core Fruit Digitises Export Transport Management

16 April 2026 · Case Studies

Core Fruit is a leading South African fresh fruit exporter that manages complex transport operations. The company coordinates shipments from multiple packhouses and cold stores to ports, plug-in depots, and international markets.

As the business expanded, transport planning and execution became harder to manage. Many processes relied on manual work, emails, and different data sources, which made it difficult to operate efficiently and scale operations.

Transport Management

Multinational Beverage Leader

27 October 2025 · Case Studies

Building a robust and scalable supply chain for regional growth

What does it take to turn a fragmented, high-cost logistics operation into a high-performance growth engine?

A leading multinational beverage company faced rising transport costs, limited visibility, and inconsistent service levels across markets. What followed was a multi-phase transformation that redefined how their supply chain operates – unlocking efficiency, control, and scalability across Africa.

This case study reveals how strategy, technology, and the right partnership came together to deliver measurable results and long-term competitive advantage.

Supply chain optimisation

Optimising South Africa’s Wholesale Cash Supply Chain

23 October 2025 · Case Studies

How strategic planning and forecasting
transformed cash logistics for the banking industry.

Introduction

Managing the movement of cash across South Africa’s banking network is one of the most complex supply chain operations in the country. Each day, billions of rand flow between the South African Reserve Bank, commercial banks, cash centres, and thousands of ATMs and retail outlets.

To reduce costs, improve visibility, and strengthen national resilience, the banking industry partnered with Transnova to design and implement a new way of managing the wholesale cash supply chain – one that could plan, forecast, and coordinate cash movements across the entire network.

The Challenge

The existing system was fragmented. Each bank managed its own cash forecasts, stock holdings, and movements separately, leading to inefficiencies and duplication across the network. Cash often sat idle in the wrong places, while other sites faced shortages – driving up holding costs and increasing risk.

When changes in central banking policy required banks to hold more of their own stock, the industry faced mounting cost pressure. Without a unified planning model or a clear view of supply and demand across all players, the network struggled to balance cash availability with efficiency.

The challenge was clear: How could the industry maintain optimal cash levels while cutting excess holdings, reducing costs, and improving responsiveness across thousands of locations?

The Solution

Transnova worked with the four major banks and the South African Reserve Bank to build a national cash logistics platform – the first of its kind in South Africa. The platform introduced a shared system for forecasting, planning, and coordinating wholesale cash movements between banks and distribution centres.

Key elements of the solution included:

Centralised planning and forecasting: A national system to model cash demand daily, weekly, and monthly across all banks.
Network design and visibility: Integration of 27 distribution centres, 15 balance sheet relief vaults, and 36 dedicated vehicles into one planning platform.
Scenario analysis: The ability to simulate “what-if” conditions such as policy changes, demand surges, or operational disruptions.
Operational governance: Structured weekly planning forums and dashboards giving all participants a single view of performance and demand trends.

This shift from fragmented management to a shared forecasting model created the foundation for a more efficient, transparent, and secure cash ecosystem.

Results Achieved

The national cash logistics platform has delivered measurable improvements across cost, visibility, and operational control:

Significant cost savings: Reduced excess cash holdings and associated operational costs across the industry.
Improved availability: Optimised stock distribution across 34,000 ATMs, 4,800 bank branches, and hundreds of cash centres.
Enhanced forecasting accuracy: More precise daily and weekly planning reduced unnecessary replenishments.
Real-time visibility: Central dashboards now track inbound and outbound cash movements, improving collaboration and accountability.
Cultural change: Industry teams shifted from reactive cash allocation to proactive, data-driven decision-making.

“The partnership we have developed with Transnova has been extremely successful and mutually beneficial. The cash planning and forecasting tool developed by Transnova is an integral part of our daily planning and scenario modelling. We do not believe this would have been achievable with a traditional software development company.”

– Stephan Burger, Head of Cash Independent Administrator

Future Impact

The national cash logistics platform continues to strengthen South Africa’s financial supply chain. By aligning planning and forecasting across all major banks and the central bank, the industry now operates with greater efficiency, predictability, and security.

Looking ahead, the system is expanding to include enhanced analytics and sustainability tracking – providing the foundation for future innovations in cash distribution, digital integration, and regional replication across Africa.

Through collaboration, data, and design, South Africa’s banking industry now manages cash with the same precision as any world-class supply chain.

Control towersdata analyticsSupply chain optimisation

Leading Multinational Telecoms Company operating across Africa

17 October 2025 · Case Studies, Insights

Overview

A prominent telecommunications company operating throughout Africa was encountering significant operational and logistical challenges in its network rollout efforts, impeding its goal to enhance mobile network coverage. To address these issues, a redesign of the operating model was necessary, prompting the client to undertake a digital transformation journey aimed at improving visibility and control across the supply chain.

Introduction

In 2019, Transnova was appointed as lead Supply Chain Business Partner with the objective of building a Logistics Control Tower to oversee the inbound and outbound management of all Network Equipment in South Africa as well as assisting with markets in Africa.

A critical challenge was the lack of visibility into equipment movement throughout the supply chain, which led to low equipment availability. Additionally, demand planning was suboptimal, resulting in substantial excess inventory and aging stock. The use of DDP Incoterms further limited visibility into the full costs associated with inbound logistics.

Visibility for data-driven decision-making

One of the initial supply chain optimization initiatives involved the development of a data lake to establish a single source of truth. This was complemented by the creation of data dashboards to enhance visibility of goods movement across the end-to-end supply chain, thereby improving operational and executive decision-making.

The Demand Planning strategy underwent a comprehensive review, leading to the development, implementation, and change management of a custom-designed DDMRP across the organization. Additionally, a business case was developed to quantify the logistics costs for equipment entering South Africa, comparing DDP and FOB Incoterms and identifying potential savings.

Inventory optimisation operating model

A focus on inventory strategy within the network equipment business revealed an excess inventory holding of 50%. To address this, a best-in-class inventory management software solution was implemented, resulting in a 52% reduction in inventory holding and R600 million in working capital savings for the company. This was achieved without disrupting network rollout and while improving inventory availability by 29%.

Logistics Control Tower

With a focus on inbound and outbound optimisation, a logistics strategy review was undertaken with the recommendation to increase the carrier base from one to five transporters and implement a Transport Management System (TMS). The centralised Logistics Control Tower provided visibility and control resulting in transport savings of 25%.

Through our ongoing supply chain business partner relationship with this leading Telecoms company, we have come to appreciate the complexity of the business and aligned our team with the company’s focus on customer, simplicity and growth. Working closely with the client’s logistics team, we have jointly delivered numerous continuous improvement initiatives that have had a lasting positive impact for shareholders.

Highlights

Supply chain business partner relationship for 6 years and still winning together.
Designed, implemented and continue to support the global inbound Control Tower.
Implemented a TMS and Logistics Control Tower achieving 25% transport savings.
Reduced inventory holding levels by 50% with inventory management software and strategy.
Delivered working capital savings of R600 million through supply & demand planning operating model re-design & implementation.
Achieved 29% equipment availability upliftment improvement.
Improved data driven decision-making through digitization and visibility with 47 new data dashboards.

Strategy design

CIMERWA Transforms Sales Strategy with Seamless Shift to Delivered Service Model

25 September 2025 · Case Studies, Insights

In order for CIMERWA to be in a position to better manage sales volumes, customer loyalty programs, market pricing and service and support levels, CIMERWA needed to migrate from the distributor model to that of a delivered service. The structured transition plan was over a 3 month period ending and was concluded by the end of April 2017.

Business Situation

CIMERWA is Rwanda’s only integrated cement producer. Established 30 years ago, the firm’s production plant is located in Bugarama, by the South Western border of Rwanda. It is the only company in Rwanda that mines raw materials, produces clinker concentrate and packs and sells cement for general and civil construction. Some of its products are exported to the DRC and Burundi. CIMERWA invested USD 170 million in a new modern dry process production plant at its head office in Bugarama with a capacity to turn out 600,000 tons of cement per year. The plant was commissioned in August 2015. CIMERWA is 51 per cent owned by PPC Ltd, Southern Africa’s largest cement producer. PPC Ltd has been in the cement business for more than 100 years and is a public company listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. More than 70 percent of CIMERWA’s sales were done through 31 distributors, and 6 of those distributors make up 68% of the distributor volumes. The distributor model arose as historically CIMERWA’s value proposition was insufficient to meet the market requirements. The distributor agreements were governed by a contract which binds distributors to volumes targets and exclusivity of distribution of CIMERWA product only. Of the 31 distributors, only two were achieving their volume targets. It had, therefore, become evident that the distributor model had many pitfalls such as disintermediation from the customer, limited control over market pricing, high risk exposure of losing significant volumes if a distributor leaves to join a competitor, increasing shift of power base to distributors and limited levers for CIMERWA to use to increase sales. The Kigali rebate table and ex-factory discounts that distributors enjoy were also prohibitive for small to medium size retailers to buy directly from CIMERWA, and thereby pushing volumes to distributors. In order for CIMERWA to be in a position to better manage sales volumes, customer loyalty programs, market pricing and service and support levels, CIMERWA needed to migrate from the distributor model to that of a delivered service. The structured transition plan was over a 3 month period ending and was concluded by the end of April 2017.

Transnova’s Role

The transition from a “distributor model” to a “delivered service” model is a sensitive matter and needs to be well managed so as to ensure that the risk of loss of sales is minimized over the transition period. Transnova assisted CIMERWA in compiling a comprehensive transition plan that included:

Using Transnova’s expertise in sourcing transporters, negotiating rates and maintaining business relationships that maximize synergy and healthy yet competitive terms between carriers and shippers
Transitioning large distributors to transporters
Revising the rebate table to be more inclusive and accessible to small retailers
Increasing CIMERWA’s value proposition by bolstering the back office (people, processes and systems)
Increasing transport capacity and adopting a nodal pricing strategy

Why This Case Study Is Relevant

The design and implementation of the new route-to-market strategy showcased the benefit of Transnova’s supply chain expertise. The successful implementation of the transition plan contributed significantly to impressive improvements in CIMERWA’s strategic positioning in the Great Lakes cement industry, resulting in:

Increased sales volumes from 10 000 tons per month to 35 000
Ensured product availability in Kigali at a lower cost
Reduced the dependency on the distributor model thereby breaking their stranglehold on the market
Provided customers with a direct delivery service with product available in a matter of hours not days

Breaking the 3PL Barrier: How Tiger Brands Unlocked R300M in Supply Chain Value

From Complexity to Control: Core Fruit Digitises Export Transport Management

Multinational Beverage Leader

Optimising South Africa’s Wholesale Cash Supply Chain

How strategic planning and forecasting
transformed cash logistics for the banking industry.

Leading Multinational Telecoms Company operating across Africa

Overview

Introduction

Visibility for data-driven decision-making

Inventory optimisation operating model

Logistics Control Tower

Highlights

CIMERWA Transforms Sales Strategy with Seamless Shift to Delivered Service Model

Business Situation

Transnova’s Role

Why This Case Study Is Relevant

Get The Transport Strategy Playbook

Find out more about Transnova

Breaking the 3PL Barrier: How Tiger Brands Unlocked R300M in Supply Chain Value

From Complexity to Control: Core Fruit Digitises Export Transport Management

Multinational Beverage Leader

Optimising South Africa’s Wholesale Cash Supply Chain

How strategic planning and forecastingtransformed cash logistics for the banking industry.

Leading Multinational Telecoms Company operating across Africa

Overview

Introduction

Visibility for data-driven decision-making

Inventory optimisation operating model

Logistics Control Tower

Highlights

CIMERWA Transforms Sales Strategy with Seamless Shift to Delivered Service Model

Business Situation

Transnova’s Role

Why This Case Study Is Relevant

Get The Transport Strategy Playbook Download now

Find out more about Transnova

How strategic planning and forecasting
transformed cash logistics for the banking industry.

Get The Transport Strategy Playbook