What exactly does a transport software partner do?
A transport software partner takes over the role of an in-house software team for transport companies that don't have one of their own. In concrete terms: a strategic roadmap for your software portfolio, building and maintaining your own TMS components, customer portals and driver apps, integrations with telematics, accounting and customs, and advice on vendor choices. The goal is that you have one fixed point of contact for everything software-related, rather than a new supplier for each topic. A partnership also covers matters that are not projects: thinking along with you on a security incident, performing a technical due diligence on an acquisition, evaluating a telematics supplier, or advising a management team on an AI experiment. The difference from "hiring an agency" lies in continuity and context: after a year, we know how your planners think and which compromises have been made over time.
Do you replace Transwide, Pionira or Centric Distributievloer?
No, not if those packages work well for what you need from them. Standard TMS packages are usually the right choice for commodity functionality such as administration, trip registration and standard planning. We build on top of them, integrate them and add to them: customer portals, mobile apps, custom planning and integrations with your other systems. We only replace a package when it no longer fits your operation structurally, when the vendor ceases to exist, or when annual licence costs and integration restrictions start to outweigh building your own. In most cases, the honest conclusion is that a healthy mix works best: a standard TMS for the accounting core, and bespoke software for what makes your business distinctive.
How is this different from a staffing agency?
A staffing agency sells people's hours. We provide an accountable team with a tech lead who stays with you for years. Concrete differences: senior rather than junior engineers, retention rather than rotation, code review and knowledge transfer built in as standard, and we remain responsible for what we build, even if an individual engineer moves on. Our hourly rate is typically higher, but total costs over a multi-year engagement are lower because there is less rework and onboarding.
What does a managed services contract include?
With managed services, we take on the continuity of your software. This includes monitoring and alerting, regular maintenance (security patches, dependency updates), a small monthly development budget for minor changes, incident response during agreed working hours, a dedicated tech lead as your point of contact, and quarterly reporting on what has happened. Larger development projects are handled separately on top of this.
How do you handle GDPR, NIS2 and CSRD?
Transport increasingly falls under NIS2 as critical infrastructure, particularly for road transport of hazardous substances, customs processing and large-scale logistics. We help build a NIS2-compliant security level (access management, log monitoring, incident procedures, supply chain checks) and support board members with the governance side: who is responsible, how reporting works, and which suppliers fall within scope. GDPR is built into everything we develop as standard: data minimisation, retention rules, audit trails, and pseudonymisation where possible. For CSRD scope 3 emissions, we help collect fuel and route data from telematics into a reporting layer, so you can supply scope 3 figures that are substantiated and auditable. We are not compliance lawyers. We work alongside your legal or compliance partner where you have one, and focus mainly on implementing the technical side correctly.
What does a partnership cost?
That depends heavily on the service model and scope. A discovery and roadmap is a defined first engagement with a fixed sprint budget, designed to be limited in scope so you come away with a substantiated plan without a major investment. Managed services are a fixed monthly fee based on the complexity of your landscape and the agreed response level (office hours versus 24/7, same-day response versus within one hour). An embedded team is priced on the number of engineers and the duration, with flexibility to scale up or down within reasonable limits. CTO-as-a-service is typically one day or a day-part per week, with variable activation for larger decisions. After an introductory conversation and a short intake, we provide a concrete quote. We don't offer a web calculator, because the range between scenarios is too wide to show honestly in advance. What we do guarantee is that rates and starting assumptions are clear upfront, and that there are no hidden margins in licence pass-through.
How does an engagement start?
In a 30-minute introductory call, we go through what you currently have and where you run into trouble. This is usually followed by a short discovery phase: a few days to a couple of sprints in which we map out your existing applications, integrations and pain points, speak with planning and operations, and put together a proposal. Only then do you choose a format (project, managed services or embedded team), and we get started. No multi-year contract on day one: the partnership grows organically from the first defined engagement. We are also happy to deliver just an audit or second opinion first and part ways if you turn out to be better served by another party. A forced partnership is not a partnership.
Can you also do AI integration?
Yes, and we prefer to approach it pragmatically and with focus. Route optimisation, document AI for CMR consignment notes and invoices, a planning assistant that supports planners rather than replacing them, and AI-powered search across your trip history. We have a dedicated page on this:
AI in transport. Importantly, we don't build AI because it's fashionable; we only do so where it measurably saves work or improves decisions.
Which other transport segments do you cover?
Alongside road transport, we also work in adjacent logistics domains. See, for example, our page on
maritime software for vessel transhipment and port operations, and
enterprise software for larger organisations with multiple business units. Specialty transport such as vehicle transport, refrigerated transport and hazmat we tackle with the same approach: bespoke workflows, not forced into a standard TMS.