Re-flow review
From rollout to partnership: how Core Highways onboarded Re-flow across five businesses
Location
Nationwide
Industry
Highways, Traffic management
Users
1200+
1,200 users onboarded
across a newly formed group
34 depots aligned
to one way of working
5+ legacy systems consolidated
into a single platform
40% reduction in admin overhead
achieved during rollout
An ongoing partnership
shaping future product roadmap
It doesn’t feel like a business transaction… it actually feels more of a partnership.
Summary
Rolling out a platform across a newly formed, large-scale business is rarely straightforward, especially when five businesses, hundreds of users, and ingrained ways of working are involved. Through close collaboration with Re‑flow, Core Highways implemented a system that quickly became a scalable operating model.
The challenge: onboarding five businesses into one way of working
Core Highways wasn’t implementing software into a single business, but into an entirely new organisation.
Each acquisition came with its own ways of working. Aligning them meant changing behaviour, building trust, and getting people on board, alongside the technical rollout. This created its own challenge: making it stick across regions, teams, and cultures. As Dafydd Lougher describes it, this was “the last piece of the rebrand puzzle”, it was the moment Core moved from being five businesses to one.
The solution: a collaborative, phased approach to onboarding
Rather than forcing change top-down, Core Highways and Re‑flow worked together to configure the platform to align with real-world operations. This meant:
- Breaking the rollout into phases across regions
- Involving stakeholders from across the business
- Adapting workflows to reflect operational reality
- Supporting teams through change, not just training them
Crucially, Re‑flow wasn’t treated as an off-the-shelf tool. Core Highways worked with Re‑flow to tailor the platform to how the business needed to operate, not the other way around. This collaborative approach meant onboarding went beyond deployment, it became a shared transformation programme.
The partnership: from supplier to extension of the team
Close collaboration underpins every Re‑flow implementation, with the Core Highways rollout showing what that looks like at scale. As the rollout progressed, the line between client and supplier blurred. Core Highways fed back directly into product development, while Re‑flow responded quickly to operational needs applicable for Core Highways, and the wider industry.
It doesn’t feel like a business transaction… it actually feels more of a partnership.
That partnership has been critical in navigating the realities of onboarding at scale:
- Managing resistance to change across teams
- Aligning regional differences into one model
- Iterating processes as the rollout matured
The result is a system that reflects how Core Highways actually works.
The results: onboarding that enabled real change
1. A true single operating model across regions
The biggest shift wasn’t technical, it was cultural.
Core Highways moved to a position where:
- An operative can move between regions and work the same way
- Processes are consistent regardless of depot
- Teams collaborate more easily across the group
Re-flow became the common language of operations, removing internal friction and enabling scale.
2. Faster adoption through collaboration, over enforcement
Rolling out to 1,200 users inevitably comes with resistance.
But by involving teams in the process and aligning the platform to their needs, Core achieved adoption at speed, without compromising usability.
The platform is now embedded across:
- Field teams
- Operational management
- Commercial and finance teams
This breadth of adoption is what makes the system valuable and sustainable.
3. Stronger internal alignment and relationships
The onboarding process itself delivered value.
By bringing together cross-region and cross‑function stakeholder, Core:
- Built stronger internal relationships
- Broke down silos between businesses
- Created shared ownership of processes
This collaboration underpins how the business operates today.
4. An evolving platform, shaped by real use
The relationship didn’t stop at rollout.
Core Highways continues to work closely with Re‑flow to:
- Refine workflows
- Influence and pilot new features
- Align the platform with future goals
This includes upcoming developments in automation, integrations, and customer-facing capabilities.
Looking ahead: scaling the partnership
With onboarding complete, the focus now shifts to what the partnership enables next. Core Highways is now in a position to:
- Introduce automation and AI-led workflows
- Expand integrations to enhance compliance, skills validation, and fleet management
- Scale operations without increasing complexity
The same collaborative approach with Re‑flow that made onboarding successful now underpins the next phase, ensuring the platform continues to evolve alongside the business.
We’re now looking to really leverage the functionality we know is in the system – or coming down the line. These are things that will accelerate our business and drive towards our growth goals.
