Modernization, optimization, & realignment are all words the industry has become increasingly familiar with as we continue to evolve and adapt. On the back end of COVID-19, unprecedented inbound container volumes, a war in Europe, and through emerging markets the global supply chain has been largely forced to evolve and adopt technology. In just 10 short years there have been a plethora of new players, from large conglomerates to small software start-ups that have all done their best to help the various fragmented processes improve.
The last mile, spearheaded by the technology Amazon, FedEx, & UPS have brought to the table is largely in a resolved status. Cloud based infrastructure and an army of logistics professionals have seen that consumers and businesses get their packages on time - and for the most part it's been a revolutionaries dream by increasing capacity, throughput, and the purchasing power of buyers, inclusive of leveling the playing field between and among countries; measured by the purchasing power parity and continued globalization of supply chains. Goods movement from warehouse to destination is not the problem.
That being said, there are still underserved parts of the industry that technology companies like PortPro are trying to resolve. So many big players have taken massive investments to tackle problems from the top down. There are too many companies to name here - and, frankly, everyone knows who they are, but data aggregation and visibility are limited in their ability to be transformative or helpful, especially for logistics businesses like drayage trucking companies. The top-down approach has seen a massive influx of investment from venture capital groups, but has also sold information aggregated from other operating systems. Some of these firms have changed leadership at the top, some very recently.
‘First mile’ service providers that grab goods from ports or rail heads and bring them to warehouses are particularly in need of some attention from technology companies. Drayage is the hub that connects all other spokes and operating software is perhaps the most critical component of the modernization necessary in the supply chain. To be sure, there's a lot of companies trying to solve the problem of fragmentation drayage companies deal with everyday. PortPro offers a solution for this, as do our friends in the industry at Trinium, Ascend, and others. Operating software for trucking companies - a TMS - contains the innate ability to store the data necessary to make decisions, but also acts as the throughput that will underpin the entire operations of a business from invoicing to dispatching to management.
Data aggregation is great, dashboards are wonderful for getting information quickly and effectively, but the lack of focus on operating software is sorely obvious. That is our thesis here at PortPro - that operating software is not only critical for the drayage space, but something that should be easy and effective for the crutch of the entire supply chain to adopt. Check out some of the products we’ve got in place today or drop us an email to schedule a demo.
Walker Banks, VP of Strategy & Business Development
Sources: http://forwarder-university.com/20220613-radio/#:~:text=channel%2C%20thank%20you.-,Flexport%20CEO%20Change,Amazon%20logistics%20head%20Dave%20Clark
https://www.joc.com/international-logistics/logistics-providers/flexport/flexport-leadership-change-suggests-lack-market-defining-progress_20220608.html
