Founded in London in 1937 as a supplier of radio spare parts, RS Group has grown into a high-service global product and service solutions provider for industrial customers—serving over 1 million customers across 33 countries with more than 875,000 products from thousands of suppliers. Operating at that scale means logistics isn’t a back-office function; it’s a competitive differentiator.
Today, RS Group ships around 1 million parcels per month through Metapack . Getting those parcels to customers quickly, cost-effectively, and through the right carrier requires constant adaptation—to market conditions, carrier performance, new territories, and evolving customer expectations. That kind of agility doesn’t happen by accident. For Khris Jones, Head of Supply Chain Systems, it’s the result of fundamentally rethinking how RS Group manages its carrier relationships.
For years, RS Group’s carrier integrations ran through SAP. The arrangement worked, up to a point. But as the business grew and market conditions shifted, the rigidity of that approach became a liability.
“Previously, our direct SAP integrations across multiple carriers created considerable operational friction,” Jones said. “This made onboarding new carriers and evolving our operating model both complex and inefficient.”
Friction, in this context, translated directly into time and money. A complex carrier change—switching multiple lanes from one provider to another—could take three to six months to organise, resource, and execute. A simpler routing update might still require two to three months of SAP development work. Internal technical resource costs were significant for even routine changes.
Worse, those delays weren’t merely operational inconveniences. They meant RS Group was effectively locked into its carrier mix at any given moment—unable to respond quickly to performance issues, pricing changes, or opportunities in new markets.
RS Group implemented Metapack roughly four to five years ago as part of a broader supply chain transformation. The goal wasn’t simply to reduce costs. It was to build the kind of carrier management agility that a global distributor needs to stay competitive.
Metapack’s onboarding followed a deliberate handover progression. First, Metapack handled configuration in full while RS Group observed. From there, the two teams collaborated closely until RS Group reached a point of genuine independence—with Metapack available whenever anything unexpected arose. It was a foundation built for the long term.
“The Metapack team dedicated strong resources to the RS implementation project from the outset,” Jones noted. “Once the first couple of carrier go-lives had been completed, Metapack was able to think ahead—streamlining the onboarding process, highlighting key areas of focus, and driving delivery forward.”
That collaborative foundation meant the benefits arrived quickly—and compounded.
“Implementing Metapack enabled us to be agile in the new environment that we’re working within, to change between carriers and implement changes to the way that we work efficiently and economically.”
Khris Jones, Head of Supply Chain Systems, RS Group
When RS Group needed to switch 15 lanes of France cross-border freight from UPS to DHL Express, the change was completed in five weeks. Pre-Metapack, the same change would have taken three to six months. A smaller routing split between DHL Parcel and TNT took two days of development and testing, down from a likely two to three months.
“Previously, it would take months and a high-value technical implementation to change between carriers,” Jones said. “Now, using Metapack, we’re able to change between carriers in a matter of weeks instead of a matter of months or years.”
The cost picture shifted just as dramatically. Complex carrier integrations now cost roughly 90% less than they did pre-Metapack. Simpler changes have seen reductions of more than 65%.
But Jones points to another dimension of this efficiency that’s easy to overlook: throughput. With the same 100 days of technical resource, RS Group can now deliver five carrier changes where it could previously manage one. In a market where technical talent is constrained, that multiplier is, in Jones’s words, “a real business enabler.”
Speed and cost are only part of the story. Metapack has also changed how RS Group sees its own carrier network—and how it uses that visibility to serve customers better.
RS Group currently runs 15 active carriers in production through Metapack, with 21 Metapack-enabled carriers recorded across the platform’s history. That breadth reflects something Metapack has made structurally possible: the ability to evolve the carrier mix continuously, without the rigid integrations that previously made every change so costly.
The enhanced reporting available through Intelligence Hub has given RS Group’s operational colleagues a level of data granularity they didn’t previously have—better insight to support better decisions at every stage of the delivery process. Globally, the platform has enabled RS Group to introduce new shipping lanes quickly and efficiently, using parent and child shipments to move goods across locations in ways that deliver tangible commercial value.
“If we weren’t using Metapack, we would be tied into certain carriers. We would have a lack of visibility through our supply chain, and we wouldn’t be able to optimise our carrier selection in the way that we can do now.”
Khris Jones, Head of Supply Chain Systems, RS Group
With approximately 1 million parcels moving through the platform every month, RS Group’s use of Metapack is enterprise carrier management at scale. The technology works. But for Jones, what’s proven equally valuable is the team behind it.
“Working with Metapack, we found the team highly supportive in helping us realise our goals, implement agile solutions, and operate at the pace required to remain competitive,” Jones said. “I’d recommend Metapack as a partner to work with.”
For a business with RS Group’s reach and complexity, that kind of agility isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s what keeps the operation moving.
Ready to transform your carrier management? Contact our team to find out how Metapack can help your business move faster, reduce integration costs, and build the carrier flexibility you need to compete.
