Surviving the Tech Evolution | EP 12
Welcome to the Veritas Vantage Podcast!
In today’s episode, your hosts Brian Hastings and Justin Maines discuss the importance of adopting technology in the logistics industry, using BlackBerry's refusal to evolve as an example, they highlight how Veritas Logistics has invested in technology to improve efficiency, transparency, and service quality, and why other companies should embrace technology into their businesses.
Get ready for discussions on Logistics and Leadership!
The Logistics & Leadership Podcast, powered by Veritas Logistics, redefines logistics and personal growth. Hosted by industry veterans and supply chain leaders Brian Hastings and Justin Maines, it shares their journey from humble beginnings to a $50 million company. Discover invaluable lessons in logistics, mental toughness, and embracing the entrepreneurial spirit. The show delves into personal and professional development, routine, and the power of betting on oneself. From inspiring stories to practical insights, this podcast is a must for aspiring entrepreneurs, logistics professionals, and anyone seeking to push limits and achieve success.
Timestamps:
(00:22) - The Fall of Blackberry: A Lesson in Adaptation
(00:57) - Embracing Technology in the Logistics Industry
(02:18) - The Evolution of Logistics: From Manual to Automated Processes
(03:50) - Veritas's Journey Towards Technological Advancement
(04:57) - The Critical Role of Technology in Business Growth and Efficiency
(07:14) - Leveraging Technology for Competitive Advantage in Logistics
(09:23) - Empowering Employees Through Technology
(10:34) - Conclusion: The Future of Technology in Transportation
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Transcript
Companies, products and services who refused to invest in technology will die.
Speaker A:Logistics industry is not immune to this trend.
Speaker A:Today we're going to talk about how you can leverage technology to do more with less.
Speaker A:Brian, did you ever own a BlackBerry?
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, I did.
Speaker B:I was more of a, you know, like a Sony thing.
Speaker B:When you had the stylus that came out?
Speaker B:No, I think I had a BlackBerry for a couple months there.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:Whether BlackBerry the documentary came out, they were so set on their product and disrupting the industry.
Speaker A:They refused to evolve with the iPhone.
Speaker A:No one wanted the email keypad anymore.
Speaker A:Is going the iPad route or iPhone route.
Speaker A:So refuse to evolve, they're gone.
Speaker A:No one has a BlackBerry anymore.
Speaker A:I think they tried to make a comeback not too long ago.
Speaker A:Still gone.
Speaker A:Brian, how important is technology in logistics and what does Veritas do to invest in technology?
Speaker B:Yeah, I mean, it's extremely important.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:How do we.
Speaker B:There's a ton of companies that have popped up over the past 10 years that are moving our company in a, in a better place than what it used to be.
Speaker B:And a lot of these tech companies, you know, there are services and products now that we would have never thought of ten years ago.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And I think that's where we look at it.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:How do we move our company and you know, move our company forward, especially with the right tech products and the right tech vendors.
Speaker B:The second part of your question was what does Veritas do That, that's a piece that we invest heavily in, right.
Speaker B:From a tms, from an EDI connection company, from a live quoting data tool.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:That we're getting all of this data and all this information to us, Right.
Speaker B:I mean, that data is huge in our industry.
Speaker B:And how do we price out certain shipments or how do we quote out certain things and how do we make our platform or our shipments transparent to our customers?
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:The people that are paying our bills, how do we let them know where their shipments are at all times?
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And that's through these tech vendors to make everybody's lives easier.
Speaker B:So I think like, you know, our industry, I think we're in a better place than we were 10 years ago.
Speaker B:I still think we have a long way to come from the tech side.
Speaker A:You know, historically you look at what our industry was about and I'm referring to like general freight brokerage.
Speaker B:Oh yeah.
Speaker A:The cradle to grave model.
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker A:Not a lot of people know what that is.
Speaker A:If you're from the industry, you definitely know what that is.
Speaker A:But cradle grave model is speaking about the broker's role in moving a shipment from point A to point B.
Speaker A:I think they used to receive a fax.
Speaker A:I don't know what a fax machine is.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, yeah, but you said.
Speaker A:I'm kidding.
Speaker A:I know what a fax machine is.
Speaker A:Used to get like a load tender from a shipper via fax.
Speaker A:They would manually input all the pickup and delivery information.
Speaker A:They're going to book a carrier.
Speaker A:I don't know if you, you know, if you're listening, if you've ever been to a truck stop where you see a load board at the truck stop.
Speaker A:That's how carriers used to book shipments.
Speaker A:And they would call into whatever phone number is posted on that board.
Speaker A:They would get a call in, they'd book that carrier, they would send the rate confirmation to the truck stop.
Speaker A:And they are touching this shipment.
Speaker A:You know, there's a lot still that goes into that shipment, but they're touching the shipment so many times from point A to point B.
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker A:From receiving the tender to invoicing the client.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Now it's how few touches can we make for a single shipment?
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:From load tender to invoicing, how many times are we going to touch the shipment?
Speaker A:The cradle grave model was extremely manual.
Speaker A:It led to burnout.
Speaker A:It was not sustainable.
Speaker A:It's not scalable.
Speaker A:And that's why over the last five to 10 years, we've seen more and more automation to streamline these historical manual processes.
Speaker A:Sure.
Speaker A:Historically, manual processes.
Speaker A:Brian, how.
Speaker A:How did Veritas start out?
Speaker A:What did the technology look like even three years ago?
Speaker A:And how have we evolved towards more automation now?
Speaker B:Yeah, so I think, I mean, we were bare bones.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:I mean, you remember those days sending the, the dispatch sheet and sending the information over to the carriers.
Speaker B:And it was, it's from a system that, you know, was a little outdated.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And how do we, you know, I think the biggest thing for us, how do we do a client presentation, show our customers, like, kind of what we use, Right?
Speaker B:Like, hey, take a sneak peek at what we use.
Speaker B:We're kind of ashamed of it.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:It's kind of like that drawer in your house that you throw all the shit in.
Speaker B:You know, it's like, oh, man, I really don't want to get into that one.
Speaker B:I think we, at our house, we call it, you know, people call it like the junk drawer.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:We have, we have one in our.
Speaker B:I'm trying to, like trick my brain.
Speaker B:I call it the neat drawer.
Speaker B:But it's still like super shitty.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:But anyway, with that, like, how do we give our customers a sneak peek at what we're using and impress them with our software when it wasn't that impressive.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So we had to make some changes.
Speaker B:We had to invest into technology and try to reduce a lot of that automation on the back end.
Speaker B:I think with our industry there is, yes, tech is making a move.
Speaker B:And you know, there are some advancements that are, that are awesome, especially for certain tasks.
Speaker B:I also feel that the people behind the technology is equally as important.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So you set the technology up.
Speaker B:It's not necessarily a set it and forget it all the time.
Speaker B:It is in most scenarios.
Speaker B:But the people behind that technology to troubleshoot or to navigate any challenges, I think is huge as well.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I think it used to be more of a nice to have like an Investor again.
Speaker A:There's 25,000 brokerages out there.
Speaker A:It's all about cash flow.
Speaker A:Early on, I think we, we had no money.
Speaker A:We had zero money.
Speaker A:So we went the agent route to build up a reserve agent route.
Speaker A:Yeah, it was great.
Speaker A:That helped us get to the next chapter of our story.
Speaker A:But there's a lot of brokerages still out there who view technology as a nice to have.
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker A:And I think it's important for us to stress like it's no longer nice to have.
Speaker A:It's a.
Speaker A:If you want to stay in business and evolve and continue to grow, technology is a must have.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:You have to do it because you're going to lead to burnout, you're going to lose employees, you, you're gonna lose market share, you're gonna lose clients because clients are getting more check technology.
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker A:Same thing with, you know, flat screen TVs.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Those things used to be like five grand.
Speaker A:I know you can get one at Sam's club for 20 bucks.
Speaker A:70 inch.
Speaker A:So like technology is gonna get cheaper and more and more people are gonna invest in technology.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And even you look at it, Brian, how difficult was it to run a report?
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker A:Client wanted an update.
Speaker A:Hey, I need an update on that hundred load project.
Speaker B:It ain't happening.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:I don't even know if it was doable.
Speaker B:Yeah, it ain't happening.
Speaker B:I think that's where we can make our.
Speaker B:Using the technology that we have or using the technology even in our space.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And there's, you know, lots of vendors out there for several different things.
Speaker B:And we'll go into, on the next episode, we'll go into one about the sales process and how to use your CRM and how to navigate that.
Speaker B:But.
Speaker B:And that's a Different type of technology.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So with the TMS and with the systems that we have, how are we using those?
Speaker B:And you know, hopefully they all talk to one another.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Where they're all able to share information across and you're able to give, you know, real time data to customers where they can see everything that you're seeing.
Speaker A:We've touched a lot on the sales side, what our job entails from moving a shipment from point A to point B, even the back office.
Speaker A:Brian, what type of technology is available for back office automation?
Speaker A:What are your thoughts there?
Speaker B:Yeah, so I think we partner with a company called Navix and they do all document processing, all account invoicing.
Speaker B:Essentially.
Speaker B:Instead of hiring two or three people, we're hiring this outsourced, you know, kind of as a service vendor to do all that work for us.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So they have a couple different document processing AI tools that they use and then it automatically feeds up into our system invoices, our clients, you know, takes care of any like shortages, damages, rejections, anything like that.
Speaker B:So that's a way that, you know, we are able to automate that process.
Speaker B:You can take those resources and invest them back into the company and you're still getting the same process on the backside or on the back end.
Speaker B:Automation.
Speaker A:Yeah, and I mentioned this earlier and you just kind of alluded to this, but you know, companies or CFOs or CEOs are concerned about the cost of investing in technology when you should really be looking at the cost of not investing in tech technology.
Speaker A:Because that is way more painful and way more expensive by not just simply looking at what you can do with technology.
Speaker A:Yeah, I mean, it's like my dad trying to teach my dad how to use an iPhone.
Speaker A:You know, Brian, if you look at our company from three or four years ago, the technology that we had, I mean it felt like it was built in World War II.
Speaker A:Sure, there, there are shippers, there's clients out there that are in the same boat as us with zero technology.
Speaker A:Right now, if you are in the industry and you know, you're working with, you know, small to mid sized clients, think of this way, how many hats is a typical logistics coordinator, logistics manager wearing at a small to mid sized company?
Speaker B:5 or 6.
Speaker A:5, 6, 10 sometimes.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:To start up having technology as a transportation provider and giving that same technology to your clients to help automate some of their workflows is going to bring significant value to them because you're offloading a lot of the tasks or the hats that they're Wearing?
Speaker B:Yeah, I think those, you know, the people that you're mentioning, logistics managers wear, you know, five, six, 10 hats.
Speaker B:I think that's a real challenge.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And I think that's why they.
Speaker B:They look to people like us like freight brokers to help them out.
Speaker B:Now I got a real question for you, man.
Speaker B:How do we, at Veritas company that puts our people.
Speaker B:How do we help out our people with the advancements of technology?
Speaker A:You, Brian, if I were to give you a pair of scissors and say, cut your yard, it would take you hours, maybe days.
Speaker A:Now if I were to give you a brand new John Deere state of.
Speaker B:The art mower, is it a zero turn?
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker A:All you have to do is steer the thing.
Speaker A:You can do it way faster, you can do it way more efficiently, and you can focus on other things that matter.
Speaker A:For us, we're not trying to replace anyone.
Speaker A:We still want people captaining the ship.
Speaker A:Yeah, but now what does that mean that we can do with the extra time that we're saving, not doing the manual processes?
Speaker A:One, we can go invest in our employees, coach, train, develop.
Speaker A:We're investing in our employees to empower them to do more, to be better at what they do.
Speaker A:They then can go give our clients better service because they're not so bogged down by the operations.
Speaker A:They're not doing check calls because we have GPS tracking.
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker A:They're not manually building a shipment because we have APIs built that are feeding shipments directly over.
Speaker A:We're not touching anything.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:All we're doing is managing issues over servicing our clients and providing a better overall service and client experience for our clients.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Maximizing efficiencies, man.
Speaker B:I think that's the name of the game.
Speaker B:All right, so as we wrap up this episode, you know, leveraging technology in our space while still prioritizing people, you can still do it.
Speaker B:Especially, you know, this day and age in transportation.
Speaker B:There's probably more technology that's coming up, but this day and age, we encourage you to our listeners, invest in the technology today.
Speaker B:You'll be better off tomorrow.
Speaker A:Have they done their homework?
Speaker A:If they're calling me and I'm moving, let's just say energy drinks are.
Speaker A:They just give me some generic sales pitch off the bat when they know nothing about me.
Speaker B:Sure.
