For a railroad, SDG developed strategies for each of the major commodities shipped and serviced by the rail system. In addition, we developed strategies for the international components of the railroad as they interfaced with the U.S. sectors of the system. For each strategic commodity, we assessed the needs of the customers to ship goods, the growth rates of the customers and their transportation preferences, and the demand these customer groups placed on the rail system in terms of rail route, rail cars, locomotives, and crews.

We combined the individual commodity strategies into a total corporate portfolio strategy and balanced the commodity strategies to gain the optimum use and maximum shareholder value of the total rail system. The result of this engagement enhanced the value of the railroad by 60 percent.