Freight transport value proposition that can actually boost bargaining power

The ability to effectively influence the other side in a freight negotiation to secure a better bargain, a.k.a. a business’s bargaining power, depends on many factors – customer structure, costs, suppliers, competition, industry concentration, strategic partnerships and the current set of economic conditions. It is also an insightful measure of the competitiveness of an industry. …

The logistics project manager – a smooth operator or a calculating bot?

Structured project management processes rely on robust methodologies with strictly detailed plans and rigorous assessments. Rather left-brained, to say the least. However, being able to communicate smoothly, to negotiate with finesse, to lead and inspire people are skills rooted deeply in emotional intelligence and adaptability. Add the highly dynamic nature of freight transportation as well …

The value of care when fighting with talent scarcity and a growing skills gap

Over the course of the last 4 weeks our experts looked into the two major human resource challenges that transport and logistics businesses face nowadays – emergent talent scarcity and skills gap. Transport and logistics professionals were asked to share their preferred strategies to deal with them. Their responses also gave us a glimpse on …

Remote Dispatching-as-a-Service for freight fleets

Thinking of transport businesses, regardless of their scale of operation, funding and fleet technology, there is one specific function that is universal – dispatching. A core business function, it requires a very high level of professionalism, skills and abilities to assess a quickly changing environment, anticipate bottlenecks and take fast decisions on the go. Since …

Productivity and resilience of logistics workforce. Challenges and strategies.

Transport companies complain of the newfound “laziness” of their workforce while warehouse and dispatch professionals fear replacement by robots and AI. A recent study confirmed that more than 2/3 of the logistics employees expect that automation will force them to learn new skills and 1/3 already plan to quit their jobs. A sci-fi scenario or …

Optimising for Resilience. Redundancy as a trade-off

We, people, are smart enough to engineer two-stage turbochargers in truck engines rather than the more effort- and cost-saving, hence more optimized, single compressors. A sacrifice readily made to tackle large inertia and better coverage of the entire operating range of the engines. Yet again we tend to build transport businesses pivoted around a single …

Management as a Service (MaaS) for Transport and Logistics? 

Management with its central functions of leadership and accountability is pervasive throughout decisions, opportunities and operations of every business. But can it really be a service or MaaS is just one of those cocky tech made-up words meant to justify premium costs? Let’s see what it really is. Simply put, management is the process of …