Brakkevoort Logistics / BG-Demo – Discovery
Callcompleted
Brakkevoort Logistics · 16 Jan 2025 11:00
First discovery call with Brakkevoort Logistics. Pieter wants exceptions seen before shippers complain. Marloes agreed nothing verbally and wants separate lines and quarterly billing in writing. Growth tier and £56k all in discussed.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026First discovery call with Brakkevoort Logistics. Pieter wants exceptions seen before shippers complain. Marloes agreed nothing verbally and wants separate lines and quarterly billing in writing. Growth tier and £56k all in discussed.
What happened: Tom Ashdown led discovery with Pieter van Dam, who runs commercial excellence. Marloes Hendriks, the CFO, joined late and said she was there for the commercial structure, not the product.
Customer view: Pieter's pain is that account status, exception tickets and call history sit in different systems. He wants to see problems before the shipper is angry on the phone, and asked BG-Demo to prove it on his data.
Commercial: Tom positioned Growth and gave a ballpark of £56k, all in with implementation, not the annual price. Marloes needs implementation and subscription as separate lines, wants quarterly billing in advance, and said she has not agreed to a figure.
Watch: The 21 Mar 2025 signing target is only a working date, and Pieter would not promise it. It depends on the demo going well and the data lead being comfortable.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Theme
Discovery, exceptions visibility, billing terms
Importance
neutral
Sentiment
neutral
Voice
decision-maker
Who was there
BG-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Tom Ashdown to send both attendees a written summary by end of the day after the call.
- Tom Ashdown to send proposal and order form as one pack with the invoicing schedule.
- Pieter van Dam to confirm which helpdesk and CRM extract is allowed for the demo.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Marloes has agreed nothing verbally and will check every invoice against the contract, so the paperwork must be exact.
- The 21 Mar 2025 signing target is a working date that Pieter would not promise.
- The £56,000 all-in figure could be misread as the annual price unless the order form splits it.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Growth tier fits several teams working from one view of accounts, exceptions and calls.
- Pieter's own Snowflake account and data team fit the build-inside-the-customer model.
Transcript
Tom AshdownHello, hello. Can you hear me alright?
Pieter van DamYes, loud and clear. Good morning, Tom.- Tom AshdownMorning, Pieter. How's your week been? Is it properly miserable over in Rotterdam or is that just the forecast?
- Pieter van DamWet and grey, as always in January. Busy though. Two vessels arrived late on Monday, so the warehouse has been catching up since. It is normal.
- Tom AshdownHa, no drama then. Well, thanks for making the time. Marloes is joining us, I think?
- Pieter van DamShe is. She said she may be a few minutes late, a supplier meeting is running over. Let's make it concrete: we start without her, and she picks up the commercial part when she arrives.
- Tom AshdownPerfect. So what I'd like to do is mostly listen. I know a bit from the introduction, you run commercial excellence, sales operations and account management, but I'd rather hear it from you than guess. What's going on that made you take the call?
- Pieter van DamOkay. To be clear, we are port-linked warehousing and road freight. Our customers are shippers. Each shipper has an account manager. The account manager needs to know three things: how is the account doing, which exceptions are open, and what did we say to them on the last call. Today those are in different places.
- Tom AshdownDifferent places being...?
- Pieter van DamThe CRM, the helpdesk where the exception tickets live, and the call recorder. And the accounting system, if there is a dispute about an invoice. Every Monday I run the shipper review with my account managers, and half of the meeting is people reading things out from different screens.
- Tom AshdownRight, yeah. And the exception tickets, what do you mean by that exactly? Late pickups, damage, that kind of thing?
- Pieter van DamLate pickups, damaged pallets, customs holds, a wrong slot at the dock. The shipper raises it or our planners raise it. What I do not like is when I see it for the first time because the shipper is already angry on the phone with the account manager.
- Tom AshdownMm. So the pain is seeing it before they shout.
- Pieter van DamExactly. Before they shout. What is the plan to get there? That is what I want to understand from you.
- Tom AshdownFair enough. Short version: the brain sits across those systems and you ask it questions in plain English. Which shippers have open exceptions and a call this week where they sounded unhappy, that sort of thing. And it's built and run inside your own Snowflake account, so the data doesn't go off somewhere else.
- Pieter van DamWe have Snowflake already, yes. My colleagues in the data team will like that. They do not like new places for data.
- Tom AshdownGood, that's a relief, honestly. Who looks after it on your side, is that a team or one person?
- Pieter van DamA small team. One lead, and she would be involved. I will bring her to the next conversation. She will ask more technical questions than I do.
- Tom AshdownBrilliant. That's where Hannah comes in, our solutions engineer. She's the one who does the demo on your own data and she'll happily sit with your data lead and go through connectors. Leave that with me.
- Pieter van DamGood. Then, one question about the exceptions. If a ticket is old and nobody touched it, can the account manager see that? Not only new tickets.
- Tom AshdownI'd rather Hannah showed you that than me waving my hands. What I can say is the idea is that the ticket, the account and the calls are read together, so an old ticket sat next to a recent call is exactly the sort of thing it's meant to surface. But we'll prove it on your data, not on a slide.
- Pieter van DamFine. That is what I want. Prove it.
Marloes HendriksGood morning. Sorry, I am late. Marloes Hendriks. Can you hear me?- Tom AshdownMorning, Marloes, we can. No worries at all, you've not missed much. Pieter's been telling me about the Monday shipper review.
- Marloes HendriksYes, I have read the note you sent. I will say upfront that I am here for the commercial structure, not the product. Pieter handles the product. I need to understand how you charge, and how you invoice.
- Tom AshdownThat's absolutely fine. So, how it works: there's a one-off implementation, fixed fee, and then an annual subscription. Based on what Pieter's described, the Growth tier is where you'd sit, because it's several teams working from it.
- Marloes HendriksAnd in money?
- Tom AshdownI don't like quoting from memory, so I'll confirm in writing. But the ballpark you'll see on the deal is fifty-six thousand pounds, and that's all in, implementation included. It is not the annual price on its own, so please don't read it as that. The split between the one-off fee and the subscription would be on the order form.
- Marloes HendriksAccording to the contract, I need to see the implementation and the subscription as separate lines. Every invoice I pay is reconciled against the contract. If a line is not in the contract, I do not pay it.
- Tom AshdownCompletely understood. They'd be separate lines, yes. Order form first, invoices follow the order form.
- Marloes HendriksAnd the billing frequency. We chose quarterly in advance for our suppliers. Quarterly in advance, as agreed in other contracts. Is that possible?
- Tom AshdownQuarterly's available on request, yes. Standard is annual in advance, but we can do quarterly and thirty-day terms either way. I'll make sure it's written down properly rather than anyone relying on this call.
- Marloes HendriksPlease do. I agree to nothing verbally. Send it in writing and I will review it with my own team.
- Pieter van DamTo be clear, Marloes, nobody is asking for a decision today. This is the first conversation.
- Marloes HendriksNoted. I only want it understood that I have not agreed to a figure. I will come back to the paperwork once I have it.
- Tom AshdownAbsolutely fair. Can I ask what timing you're thinking about? On our side we've pencilled a target of 21 March 2025 for getting an order form signed, but that's just a working date.
- Pieter van DamThat is possible, if the demo goes well and my data lead is comfortable. I would not promise it. What is the plan between now and then?
- Tom AshdownSo, next: we get a demo in the diary, Hannah and me, with you and your data lead. For that she'd need a sample extract from the helpdesk and the CRM so she's showing your shippers, not made-up ones. Then proposal, and then the paperwork Marloes will want to look at.
- Pieter van DamOkay. I will ask my team what extract is allowed. I will tell you this week what is possible, and if it is not possible I will say so.
- Marloes HendriksI will need the proposal and the order form in one pack, with the invoicing schedule. Not in pieces.
- Tom AshdownOne pack. Noted. I'll send you both a short summary of today by end of tomorrow so we're all reading from the same page.
- Pieter van DamGood. Then I think we are done. Thank you, Tom.
- Tom AshdownCheers, both. Speak soon. Enjoy the rain.
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