Case Study 03: GlobalTrade Logistics — Scenario Paper
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Practice Information
Difficulty: Advanced (Full Board Simulation) Domain weights: D1 System Arch: HEAVY | D2 Security: HEAVY | D3 Data: HEAVY | D4 Solution: MEDIUM | D5 Integration: HEAVY | D6 Dev Lifecycle: MEDIUM | D7 Communication: MEDIUM Designed for 180-minute prep window
Before You Start
Print this scenario. Read it twice using the Two-Pass Reading Method — once for understanding, once to extract implicit requirements. Build all 9 artifacts within the 180-minute window.
Project Overview
GlobalTrade Logistics (GTL) is an international freight forwarding and logistics company headquartered in Chicago. Founded in 1998, GTL provides end-to-end supply chain services including ocean, air, and ground freight, warehousing, customs brokerage, and — via a recent acquisition — cold-chain logistics for temperature-sensitive goods.
Company profile:
| Attribute | Detail |
|---|---|
| Industry | Supply Chain / Logistics / Freight Forwarding |
| Employees | 5,800 across 18 countries |
| Regional presence | NA, Europe (UK, DE, NL, FR), APAC (SG, AU, JP, CN, KR) |
| Corporate client accounts | 35,000 |
| Annual shipments | 2.8 million (15-20 tracking events each) |
| Annual revenue | $6.2 billion (15% growth, primarily acquisitions) |
| Recent acquisition | FrostLine Cold Logistics (400 employees, $280M revenue) |
The CEO has authorized a 24-month, $14.5M program to consolidate three regional Salesforce instances into a single global org, integrate FrostLine, and build a unified customer experience platform.
COO (David Okafor): “We cannot afford shipment visibility gaps during consolidation. Our clients track shipments in real-time and any interruption sends them to competitors.”
CISO (Anja Muller): “We operate in 18 countries with different data residency requirements. EU must comply with GDPR, and we have data sovereignty obligations in Singapore, Japan, and Australia.”
CIO (Rajesh Patel): “We spend $4.2 million per year maintaining three separate orgs with three admin teams and no shared standards. Consolidation must eliminate that.”
Current State — Three Regional Salesforce Orgs
North America Org (NA-ORG) — 8 years old
- 2,400 users; Sales Cloud + Service Cloud
- 180 custom objects, 3,200 custom fields, 95 Apex triggers, 420 Process Builders
- Heavily customized Shipment object (180+ fields); custom VF quoting tool (18 pages, 12 controllers)
- SAP S/4HANA integration via custom SOAP (6 years old); 14M Shipment records, 210M Tracking Events
- Page load for shipment records: 8.2 seconds (degrading quarterly); storage: 92% utilized
- 22 report types, 340 reports, 85 dashboards; 25 carrier integrations via Apex callouts
Europe Org (EU-ORG) — 5 years old
- 1,800 users; Sales Cloud only; Zendesk for service (1.2M historical tickets)
- 85 custom objects, 1,600 custom fields, 40 Apex triggers, 180 Flows
- Different Shipment schema (120 fields) than NA; multi-language (EN, DE, NL, FR)
- SAP ECC 6.0 integration (legacy, different version than NA); GDPR compliance built in (consent tracking, right-to-delete, data processing records)
- EU data stored in Salesforce Frankfurt data center; 8M Shipments, 120M Tracking Events; storage: 78%
- 12 carrier integrations via Apex callouts
Asia-Pacific Org (APAC-ORG) — 3 years old
- 1,200 users; Sales Cloud only; service via email (no case management)
- 45 custom objects, 800 custom fields, 15 Apex triggers, 90 Flows; minimal Shipment customization (60 fields)
- Multi-language (EN, JA, ZH, KO); freight booking via daily CSV file transfers
- Japan APPI and Singapore PDPA compliance requirements
- 4M Shipments, 65M Tracking Events; storage: 45%; 8 carrier integrations via CSV
Note: NA’s 420 Process Builders are significant technical debt — Process Builder is being retired by Salesforce and these must be converted to Flows during or after consolidation.
FrostLine Cold Logistics — Recent Acquisition
400 employees across 6 countries (US, UK, NL, JP, AU, SG). Specializes in temperature-controlled freight for pharmaceuticals, fresh food, and chemicals.
| System | Purpose | Key Details |
|---|---|---|
| FileMaker Pro CRM | Client management, quoting | 3,500 accounts, no API, CSV export only |
| FrostGuard | Temperature monitoring IoT | 12,000 sensors, readings every 60 sec, 180-day retention |
| Temperature Compliance DB | Regulatory records | PostgreSQL — excursion records, compliance certs, audit logs (FDA/MHRA/TGA) |
| Manual spreadsheets | Operations | 45 Excel workbooks for routing, containers, pricing |
FrostLine MD (James Whitfield): “Our temperature monitoring is our competitive advantage. We cannot lose this during integration — Salesforce must surface alerts to our service team.”
VP M&A (Lisa Zhang): “FrostLine’s clients overlap with 2,800 of our existing accounts. We need to merge without losing relationship history on either side.”
External Systems and Integration Volumes
| System | Function | Protocol | Daily Volume |
|---|---|---|---|
| BluJay TMS | Shipment booking, routing, carrier selection | REST API | 8,000 bookings |
| Manhattan WMS | Warehouse inventory, pick/pack/ship | REST + events | 15,000 events |
| Descartes CustomsInfo | Tariff, denied-party screening, export compliance | SOAP | 4,000 screenings |
| CargoSmart | Ocean vessel tracking | REST webhook | Real-time updates |
| Project44 | Multi-modal shipment visibility | REST webhook + polling | 42,000 events |
| SAP S/4HANA (NA) | Finance, accounting, invoicing | RFC + OData | 12,000 transactions |
| SAP ECC 6.0 (EU) | Finance (legacy) | BAPI/RFC | 8,000 transactions |
| APAC local ERPs | Finance (varies by country) | CSV/SOAP/REST | 5,000 transactions |
| Microsoft Entra ID | Identity provider | SAML 2.0 / SCIM | 5,800 users |
| Twilio | SMS delivery notifications | REST | 35,000 SMS |
| FrostGuard | Temperature sensors | MQTT + REST | 720,000 readings |
| 40+ Carrier APIs | Rates, bookings, tracking | REST (varied formats/auth) | 65,000 calls |
| Total | ~920,000 events/day |
GTL also manages trade compliance documents (bills of lading, air waybills, commercial invoices, customs declarations, certificates of origin, dangerous goods declarations, temperature compliance certs, proof of delivery). Combined ~6M documents/year across multiple systems. Clients frequently request complete document bundles per shipment.
GTL operates 12 warehouses globally (Chicago, Long Beach, Newark, Rotterdam, Hamburg, London, Singapore, Tokyo, Sydney, Shanghai, Miami cold-chain, Amsterdam cold-chain). 800 warehouse workers and 200 transport drivers operate from these facilities. Port terminals and some warehouses have intermittent connectivity. Drivers use personal devices (BYOD) with company data plans.
Business Requirements
Org Consolidation (Req 1-5)
- Unify three regional orgs + FrostLine into a single platform for 5,800 users
- Merge duplicate client accounts across orgs preserving all relationship history and open opportunities
- Harmonize regional shipment processes — common lifecycle with regional variations via configuration
- Preserve EU compliance capabilities and extend jurisdictional controls to all regions
- Zero downtime for customer-facing shipment tracking during transition
Shipment Tracking (Req 6-10)
- Handle 42-56M new tracking events/year with sub-3-second shipment page loads
- Complete chronological shipment timeline on single screen (tracking, carrier, customs, exceptions)
- Client self-service portal with real-time status, ETAs, and document access
- Proactive exception management: auto-detect late shipments, routing deviations, customs holds, temperature excursions
- 5 years of historical shipment data searchable and reportable
Cold-Chain (Req 11-14)
- Temperature data accessible alongside shipment status for service agents
- Temperature excursion alerts trigger immediate escalation (client notification, carrier contact, incident documentation)
- Regulatory compliance records (FDA/MHRA/TGA) with audit trails and on-demand reporting
- Merge FrostLine’s 3,500 accounts with GTL’s 35,000, handling 2,800 overlaps
Customer Portal (Req 15-18)
- Role-based portal for 35,000 accounts (admin, operations, finance roles)
- Self-service quoting replacing Excel-based process
- Trade compliance document upload/download
- Handle 8,000 concurrent users during peak hours
Field Operations (Req 19-21)
- Mobile app for 800 warehouse workers across 12 facilities with offline capability
- Mobile app for 200 drivers: delivery confirmation, proof of delivery (photo + signature), offline sync
- Real-time supervisor visibility into warehouse throughput, driver locations, delivery rates
Reporting (Req 22-24)
- Global ops dashboard: volumes by region/mode, on-time rates, exception rates, revenue per shipment (4-hour refresh)
- Finance: quote-through-invoice visibility with cross-system reconciliation
- Regional compliance: GDPR processing logs, trade screening logs, temperature compliance
Security (Req 25-30)
- Access governed by region, business unit, and function; no cross-region visibility unless global account
- 4,200 global accounts visible to all relevant regional teams with data protection controls
- Data residency: EU personal data in EU data center; Japan/Singapore/Australia per local regulations
- Portal users authenticated with MFA; support for client IdP federation
- Sensitive data (hazmat, denied-party results, cold-chain pharma) restricted beyond standard RBAC
- Complete audit trail for shipment, compliance, and account changes per jurisdictional retention
Integration (Req 31-35)
- Consolidate 40+ carrier APIs into a single layer; onboard new carriers without custom dev per carrier
- Bidirectional TMS synchronization in near-real-time
- WMS events flow into CRM within 5 minutes
- Consolidated ERP integration accounting for EU’s planned S/4HANA upgrade during the program
- Temperature data: alerts within 2 minutes of excursion; full 60-second readings not required in Salesforce
Governance (Req 36-39)
- Clear governance: ownership, change request process, deployment controls
- Support globally distributed dev team (3 time zones) with bi-weekly releases
- Test environments replicating production complexity
- Release management preventing regional changes from breaking other regions
Constraints
- EU Salesforce data must remain in an EU data center
- FrostGuard stays standalone; Salesforce integrates with it, not replaces it
- SAP S/4HANA (NA) is the global ERP target; EU upgrade completes month 18
- Carrier APIs cannot be modified — GTL must adapt
- FrostLine FileMaker must be decommissioned within 12 months
- Max 2 hours planned downtime for any customer-facing service during entire program
- Must support 7 languages: EN, DE, NL, FR, JA, ZH, KO
Stakeholders
| Role | Name | Key Concern |
|---|---|---|
| CEO | Maria Chen | Client retention through operational excellence |
| COO | David Okafor | Zero disruption during transformation |
| CISO | Anja Muller | Data residency; multi-jurisdictional security |
| CIO | Rajesh Patel | Consolidation ROI; reducing $4.2M 3-org maintenance |
| VP Sales | Tom Nakamura | Unified global account view; cross-sell cold-chain |
| VP Customer Experience | Sarah Kim | Portal performance; self-service adoption |
| VP Field Ops | Marcus Johnson | Mobile reliability; offline capability |
| VP M&A | Lisa Zhang | FrostLine onboarding; account merge |
| FrostLine MD | James Whitfield | Cold-chain monitoring preservation |
| EU Director | Pierre Duval | GDPR; no EU disruption |
| APAC Director | Yuki Tanaka | Data sovereignty; local language support |
Budget and Timeline
| Item | Budget | Timeline |
|---|---|---|
| Phase 1: Foundation + NA migration | $5.5M | Months 1-8 |
| Phase 2: EU + APAC migration | $4.5M | Months 6-16 |
| Phase 3: Cold-chain + portal | $3.0M | Months 12-22 |
| Contingency | $1.5M | As needed |
| Total | $14.5M | 24 months |
IT staff: 45 internal (15 SF admins/devs across regions, 20 integration/infrastructure, 10 management). SI partner: Big Four firm with 35-person team. FrostLine IT: 8 people (all retained).
Known Risks
- LDV performance: Combined ~395M historical + 42-56M/year new tracking events
- Duplicate accounts: Conflicting field values across orgs with no global source of truth
- EU ERP upgrade overlap: SAP ECC to S/4HANA months 10-18 overlaps EU Salesforce migration
- FrostLine cultural integration: Small-company agility vs. “big company processes”
- Carrier API fragility: 40+ point-to-point integrations with undocumented rate limits
- Portal scale: 8,000 concurrent users beyond typical Experience Cloud deployments
Deliverables
Present all 9 CTA solution artifacts in 30 minutes + 30-minute Q&A:
- System Landscape
- Data Model / ERD
- Role Hierarchy & Sharing Model
- Integration Architecture
- Identity & SSO
- Data Migration Strategy
- Governance Framework
- Environment Strategy
- Phased Delivery Roadmap
Board Strategy
This scenario is deliberately complex. Identify the 3-4 highest-risk architectural decisions and go deep. Briefly cover the rest. Show trade-off awareness, not feature lists.
Key Implicit Requirements
Data volumes (413M+ tracking events), regulatory landscape (GDPR/APPI/PDPA across 18 countries), org consolidation (3 orgs with different schemas, languages, and compliance tooling), integration count (40+ carriers + enterprise systems at ~920K events/day), and the dual-transformation risk (Salesforce + SAP simultaneously in EU) drive your most critical decisions.