Race Winning Brands Sees Rapid ROI with Descartes OzLink for International Shipping

Race Winning Brands (RWB) is a leading manufacturer and international shipper of automotive and powersport parts from locations throughout the US, Canada, Australia and Europe. Owned by an ambitious private equity company, RWB continues to rapidly grow by acquisition, frequently welcoming new brands. Before discovering Descartes OzLink™ for shipping, RWB experienced inefficiency and shipping errors due to its acquisitions’ outdated, disconnected enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and manual data entry processes. How did the company overcome these obstacles, secure rapid return on investment (ROI) for acquisitions, and ensure international shipping accuracy? 

Incorrect export documents posed one of the biggest international shipping challenges before RWB implemented Descartes OzLink. Because the company relied on manual data entry between each acquisition’s ERP and platforms like FedEx Ship Manager® and UPS WorldShip®, key entry errors and other human mistakes could occur.  

Erroneous export documents meant the company might declare higher value on export items than necessary and accidentally over-charge customers for shipping. It was a major risk for everyone because customers pre-paid duties, taxes, and fees. If an amount was wrong, getting the charges reversed was a huge headache.   

Race Winning Brands (RWB) is a leading US-based manufacturer of high-performance racing parts for automotive and powersport aftermarkets. RWB is headquartered in Mentor, Ohio and ships from manufacturing locations throughout the US, Canada, Australia, Europe, and around the world. 

Now whenever Race Winning Brands acquires a new brand, the company immediately brings the acquisition onto RWB’s UPS WorldShip account for discounted shipping rates. Then, RWB implements Descartes OzLink to connect the acquisition's ERP, such as QAD® or Sage 500 ERP® (MAS 500), with WorldShip and automate shipping workflows.  

“It streamlines the entire process because you can go right into the warehouse, identify the area for improvement, and implement Descartes OzLink in under two months,” shares Ramirez. “After that, you're seeing no more errors, no more wasted time, no more mis-ships. And it just makes each acquisition so much smoother and profitable right away.”   

“Descartes OzLink makes it easier because, unlike using UPS WorldShip by itself, we don't have to key any address or commodity information, just the shipment number,” Ramirez continues. “Really, all we need to do is put the package on the scale, do a spot check, hit the F10 button, and print our shipping labels. We're done.” 

“Before Descartes OzLink we could have had a shipment with 100 different commodities on it and, with someone just typing it all in, you're hoping they don't mistype a value or a quantity. It could take up to an hour to process one shipment. Now we do it in two to three minutes, on average. The person in the Mentor, OH warehouse who's in charge of export documents said I became his best buddy once this was done because it saved him so much time.” 

“It’s a very complex process to ship internationally,” Ramirez concludes with satisfaction, “but since we’ve moved to Descartes OzLink, I have not heard of a single issue with taxes and duties. So, it’s doing its job.” 

RWB reduced the time to process international shipments from an hour to an average of two minutes, saving “a few hours per day and countless headaches if mistakes were made.” Instead of manually typing addresses and commodities, they can quickly validate shipments.

Because Descartes OzLink is fully integrated with UPS WorldShip and RWB’s ERP, employees no longer need to manually key addresses. This eliminates the possibility of human error and prevents mis-ships.

Since the company moved to Descartes OzLink, leaders report no issues with incorrectly calculated duties, taxes, and fees. Customers are protected from overpayments because export information is accurate.

RWB implements Descartes OzLink within two months of each new acquisition, improving warehouse productivity and eliminating human mistakes for maximum return on investment at the outset.