Follow us on Twitter!
Blog Header Logo
DG&A's Transportation Consulting Blog
Subscribe to this list via RSS Blog posts tagged in Business Transformation Strategy

b2ap3_thumbnail_dreamstime_l_182286042.jpg

The Covid-19 pandemic is much more than a major health crisis that has produced massive business closures and job losses. It represents a “change agent” that will likely produce a range of impacts in Health Care, Education, Technology and in the world of Business. Some of these changes may be temporary but many of them will be permanent; they will remain long after a vaccine is found. Here are some examples of the changes taking place.

A recent study by Jonathan Dingel and Brent Neiman of the University of Chicago found that 37 percent of jobs in the U.S. can be performed from home. Webex, GoToMeetings, Microsoft Teams, Face Time and Zoom video conference calls are now a regular part of every day. While these services were in widespread use pre-Covid, they are being increasingly used by businesses, schools, churches, associations, and other organizations. Working from home has certain disadvantages (i.e. distractions, noise levels, inability to arrange impromptu face-to-face meetings with coworkers etc.) but it has certain inherent significant benefits (reduced travel time, fuel consumption and carbon emissions) that should provide many citizens with a better quality of life.

Just as important as the social and technological changes being driven by the pandemic are the changes taking place in the operations of specific business segments. Some industries (i.e. restaurants, travel, hospitality etc.) are being transformed as new processes and procedures are put in place to protect consumers and employees.

For example, restaurants are rearranging tables so their customers sit six feet apart, they are erecting plexiglass dividers to limit the exchange of potentially harmful respiratory droplets between patrons, or between patrons and employees, creating disposable menus, and ensuring their employees wear masks, gloves and other protective equipment. Similarly, airlines are making changes to their processes by performing temperature checks before passengers enter a departure gate, leaving the middle seats vacant on their flights and by more frequently sanitizing their planes.

...
Hits: 1817
0
Continue reading 0 Comments

b2ap3_thumbnail_dreamstime_xl_63095323.jpg

It is still the morning after the night before. Thus, it is somewhat early to draw any conclusions about how Donald Trump and The Republican Party achieved such a major victory in the US elections this week. Having said that, there were some powerful business lessons that emerged from this election process. Here are some that immediately come to mind.

Understand the Needs of your Customers

Everyone is acknowledging today that Donald Trump heard the voices of white working class Americans and other disaffected groups better than anyone in the Democratic Party. He heard their concerns about the challenges of lost jobs, technological change, stagnation in wages and other troubling issues. Moreover, he channeled this dissatisfaction and anger into an unprecedented, historic victory.

Key Takeaway: Business leaders must take the time to tune in to their customers, to peel away the layers of the onion to hear their true concerns and then to meet their needs. It was clear from this bitter election campaign that the Democrats, the party of the working class, were not in tune with many Teamsters, working class people and other groups that have aligned with them for so long.

...
Hits: 2394
0
Continue reading 0 Comments

 

b2ap3_thumbnail_Cavaliers-champs.jpg

Last night, history was made in the National Basketball League. For the first time in the long history of the league, a team came back from being down 3 games to 1 in the Championship Final to win the series. This is a remarkable achievement in view of the fact that their opponent, the Golden State Warriors, had the best regular season record of all time, having won 73 games and lost only 9 times. The Warriors had an excellent team with two of the best “pure” shooters that the league has ever seen. Moreover, they had only lost 3 games on their home court in the entire season. On top of that, one of their players, Stephen Curry, was the league’s most valuable player.

The Cavaliers managed to win two games in Oakland during the series.  How did they do it? What are some business lessons that one can take away from this astonishing victory? Here is my take.

Change your game plan when it is not working

...
Hits: 2359
0
Continue reading 0 Comments

This is the fourth in a series of blogs on Technology in Transportation. The three previous articles appeared in 2013 (http://www.dantranscon.com/index.php/blog/entry/quotemytruckloadcom-and-freightopolis-enter-the-automated-freight-brokeragefreight-portal-space, http://www.dantranscon.com/index.php/blog/entry/innovation-and-technology-come-to-the-freight-brokerage-industry, http://www.dantranscon.com/index.php/blog/entry/freightsnap--an-exciting-new-visual-tool-to-verify-the-density-of-ltl-freight) and featured 5 interesting companies, FreightSnap, Freightopolis, QuoteMyTruckload, BuyTruckload and Post.Bid.Ship. In this piece, I will examine two other innovative freight transportation companies, Zipments (https://www.zipments.com/) and DashHaul (https://www.dashhaul.com/) that are using technology to transform their segments of the freight industry.

Walmart, Amazon, and Google, among others, are piloting same-day delivery projects in select locations around the country that have enough density and demand to drive the value proposition. However, obstacles persist, and success is contingent on critical mass. Expedited transportation is costly, and last-mile capacity is likely to become even more constrained as e-commerce grows. Moving small volumes over short distances at high speed is a significant challenge.

b2ap3_thumbnail_zipments.jpg

Zipments aggregates courier capacity—whether it's a truck, van, or bicycle messenger—in effect, creating capacity that didn't exist before, especially in urban areas. This New York City-based technology company has evolved into a “virtual freight broker for local and regional courier services”. The company serves four types of customers: retail, professional services, consumers, and restaurants. Many startups in the same-day delivery space are searching for capacity to provide consumers with the fastest delivery possible. That's not the case for Zipments that is focused on tapping into latent capacity. So whether it's auto part milk runs, florist delivery vans, or bicycle messengers, there's a huge nationwide fleet of available but untapped capacity. Zipments tries to work with fleet managers to help them better utilize their assets and serve other sectors.

The business is segmented both in terms of the markets it serves and the modes of transportation. Metro delivery is anything less than 10 miles, local deliveries extend out to 20 miles, suburban deliveries reach 30 to 50 miles and regional deliveries would represent going from New York City to Philadelphia or Montreal to Toronto. Zipments doesn’t do many regional deliveries yet, but as their network grows, they expect that segment to expand. There is capacity for regional deliveries; people are passing through these corridors every day.

...
Hits: 7035
0
Continue reading 0 Comments

Two developments over the past five years have reshaped the Canadian Freight Industry. The Great Recession in the late 2000s caused many Canadian trucking companies to shrink in size or leave the freight industry. During the past couple of years, there has been considerable consolidation in the small parcel, domestic LTL over the road and Intermodal segments of the Canadian freight industry. Shippers looking for a national courier or LTL carrier now see many familiar brands in the hands of a small group of companies.

Shippers worrying about whether there will full and fair competition in the Canadian freight industry in the years ahead can take solace from what is happening south of the border. Our American friends experienced the same economic downturn in 2007. Some experts believe that as much as fifteen percent of the freight capacity in the United States left the market during the Great Recession.

The good news is that as this capacity left the market, several emerging trends suggest that new strategies and business models are providing increased competition in the LTL sector.

Build a Carrier Partnership Network

Some significant carrier partnerships and alliances have been formed to provide more competition on the national and regional level. In an effort to compete with the national LTL players (e.g. YRCW, FedEx Freight, Old Dominion etc.), The Reliance Network was formed. It brings together:

...
Hits: 5885
0
Continue reading 0 Comments

If your trucking company hasn’t been purchased or doesn’t get purchased by TransForce, will it be in business in five years?  That is the question that came up in a recent discussion with a long time industry colleague.  The response I received was that he didn’t think his company would survive.  I was a bit surprised by the response and asked him for an explanation.  This led to an interesting discussion on what it is going to take to make it in the trucking industry in 2014 and beyond.

We both agreed that while the trucking industry has changed in some ways over the past decade (e.g. more use of technology, better cost controls after the Great Recession, LNG vehicles, greater use of 3PLs as customers), the industry is not that much different from ten years ago.  The slow economic turnaround since 2008 has created a challenging environment and there is little reason to expect a major improvement in the short term.  Rate increases are hard to come by, even with a tight driver situation.  Even more of a concern is the lack of innovation in the industry and the threat that such changes could wreak on so many complacent companies.

The warning signs are there.  As a Canadian, you don’t have to look much further than Nortel and Blackberry to see what can happen to industry leaders that were not able to keep up with changing consumer needs and quality competitors.  At the same time, one can observe what companies such as Amazon and Apple have been able to do to change the paradigm of some long established industries. 

Some of the large trucking industry players are making investments in technology and people.  They are integrating back offices and focusing on achieving economies of scale.  They are thoughtfully expanding their service portfolios and geographic footprints. 

Some of the small players are offering solutions that are very tailored to certain industry verticals and geographic areas.  Companies that are focused on same day delivery, refrigerated intermodal service, pooled LTL service, energy distribution and other emerging capabilities are creating a space for themselves in the industry.

...
Hits: 11467
0
Continue reading 0 Comments

Most Recent Posts

Search


Tag Cloud

Facebook shipper-carrier contracts Business Transformation Strategy 2014 freight forecast Impeachment Electric Vehicles driver pay Entrepreneur driverless autonomous vehicles FMCSA Canadian economy Colilers International US Economy Toronto CP Rail freight agreements Twitter computer security Transloading Value Proposition Business skills technology laptop trucking company acquisitions last mile delivery Conway Canada U.S. trade shipping Horizontal Supply Chain Collaboration Crisis management Canadian freight market US Manufacturing Habs Masters in Logistics Warehousing marketing Trump Whole Foods bulk shipping customer engagement intermodal 2014 economic forecast routing guide freight costs Training 2012 Transportation Business Strategies. Jugaad Deferred Packaging RFP Search engine optimization Harper Davos speech transportation audit freight cost savings future of freight industry mentoring freight transportation in 2011 broker security MPG Blogging Associates fuel surcharge shipper-carrier collaboration President Obama BlueGrace Logistics Spanx transportation news recession BNSF shipping wine transportation newspaper Railway Association of Canada dark stores Doug Davis employee termination robotics Social Media in Transportation Coronavirus shipper-carrier roundtable rail safety Map-21 Grocery Load broker solutions provider drones Retail hiring process Scott Monty KCS Keystone Pipeline Uber Freight Amazon Rail Bobby Harris Canada's global strategy freight RFP pipelines Rotman School of Business autos Cleveland Cavaliers cars Fire Phone $75000 bond Freight Shuttle System Doug Nix US Auto Sales Transcom Fleet Leasing Canadian Transportation & Logistics FMS Freight Capacity Dan Goodwill NCC Freight Matching CN CSA Freight Recession Wal-Mart USA Truck Shipper FCPC trade buying trucking companies Life Lessons driver cheap oil business security Digitization Social Media energy efficiency General Motors Microsoft small parcel University of Tennessee CSA scores tanker cars freight transportation Donald Trump Freight Rates Sales Strategy JB Hunt automation Montreal Canadiens Broker Freight contracts NAFTA LCV's Outsourcing Sales Load Boards consumer centric Justice Inbound Transportation Comey New York Times Hockey home delivery Trucker Protest the future of transportation Covid-19 risk management Management freight bid Carriers CSX capacity shortage freight transportation conference Global experience Canada-U.S. trade agreement YRC freight forwarders derailments Ferromex Regina Driver Shortage Rate per Mile computer protection 3PL CITA Shipper Pulse Survey CN Rail driver shortages selling trucking companies 3PLTL Business Strategy Reshoring economic outlook Trucking Sales truck drivers professional drivers UP freight marketplace Freight Management Retail transportation Canadian Protests Online grocery shopping dynamic pricing Job satisfaction Surety bond Celadon China YRCW FuelQuest truck driver Canadian truckers Leafs computer Blockchain Truckload USMCA 2014 freight volumes Tracy Matura NMFC US Election Politics freight broker ShipMax Dedicated Trucking Global Transportation Hub ProMiles Swift Hudsons Bay Company Climate Change Transport Capital Partners (TCP) Canada Muhammad Ali Transportation natural disasters Transplace freight payment freight audit LinkedIn Dedicated Contract Carriage truck capacity broker bonds ELD Leadership NS economic forecasts for 2012 Driving for Profit Distribution Sales Management capacity shortages Omni Channel freight audit Business Development Anti-Vax MBA Consulting e-commerce freight rate increases EBOR freight payment Geopolitics Government peak season economy online shopping digital freight matching Werner TMS Stephen Harper Trade Vision Digital Freight Networks Adrian Gonzalez TransForce cyber security Schneider Logistics Transportation service Freight Carriers Association of Canada IANA Emergent Strategy Transportation Buying Trends Survey FCA financial management network optimization CRM Crude Oil by Rail 2015 Economic Forecast coaching dimensional pricing asset management Yield Improvement small business 360ideaspace home delibery Training New Hires Success LTL carrier conference supply chain management Failure Career Advice Education Derek Singleton Infrastructure business start-up APL Accessorial Charges Toronto Maple Leafs Right Shoring Sales Training Loblaw Freight US Housing Market Packaging TMP Worldwide Software Advice Otto Success failure entrepreneur Tariffs 2013 Economic Forecast David Tuttle Finance and Transportation

Blog Archives

March
February
December
October
September
August
June
May
April
March
January