Mapping and Managing Your Digital Transformation Journey
By: Tracy Neill
Tags: Shipping, Broker, Transportation, Technology, Logistics

Traditional freight brokerages are adopting powerful new technologies at an increasingly faster pace. Technology is the foundation for building better engagement and making your brokerage “stickier” with the carrier community in a capacity challenged market.

This session explores how evolving technology is impacting brokers, and the key operational challenges that can be solved — and deliver rapid ROI — with the right plan and approach to building out your brokerage’s technology capabilities.

Watch these short clips from the interview to learn:

How to evaluate partners, map out a plan, and prioritize technologies that offer “quick wins.”

The top 3 issues brokers should focus on and how resolving these can elevate the business.

Why listening to the voice of the customer is critical to effective decisions and avoiding failure.

Training and culture; bringing your workforce along, successfully managing change.

Why technology projects are not one and done, the continuous improvement journey.

Where is your digital transformation journey taking Becker Logistics?

When planning your digital technology transformation journey, there are many factors to consider, including scalability and bringing your customers with you on the journey.

Jim Becker from Becker Logistics discusses the importance of scaling with the technology and working on substantial growth over time rather than just jumping in 100% right off the bat. You first need to test out the technology and make sure that it’s working properly for your business, your customers and your carriers to make each of you profitable.

As you start to create a plan for your digital technology transformation journey, the first think you need to think about is what your digital strategy looks like. The platform you are adopting should fit with your strategy in 3 main categories:

Prasad Gollapalli from Trucker Tools dives into the process of planning your digital technology journey and the most important things to focus on when starting to choose what platform you should adopt.

Jim Becker from Becker Logistics talks about the importance of stakeholders internally and externally and how every business decision, such as their choice to adopt digital freight matching, effects every stakeholder involved in the business.

The 2 main benefits a technology must have are a live connection with carriers and real-time data. However, a lot of brokers get caught up in the buzz words, or “noise”, when they are selecting a new technology and end up with a solution that doesn’t match their strategy.

Prasad Gollapalli of Trucker Tools discusses how taking away “noise” and focusing on the benefits of a digital platform will help you narrow down your choices and select the right technology for you as you are transitioning to a new technology.

“If you aren’t on a digital platform you are going to be left behind” — Jim Becker, CEO, Becker Logistics

“If you aren’t on a digital platform you are going to be left behind” — Jim Becker, CEO, Becker Logistics

Jim Becker of Becker Logistics dives into the process of how they plan to get up to 90% of their freight booked through digital freight matching and how Trucker Tools has helped them improve their business strategy and efficiency with the predictive data we provide.

What are the biggest lessons learned in Becker Logistics’ digital transformation journey?

“If you don’t invest in the future, you wont have a future” — Jim Becker, CEO, Becker Logistics

Jim Becker from Becker Logistics stresses the importance of investing in the future and not being afraid to spend the capital to improve your business.

Prasad Gollapalli from Trucker Tools also discusses the importance of having a clear goal of where you are going and using technology to reach that goal. Technology is the connectivity between you and your carriers and will help to build that network and keep everyone happy and profitable.

To watch the full interview, click the video below.