In this podcast episode Mike Mulqueen and Joe Lynch discuss freight tech trends. Mike shares insights on the largest TMS companies and some of the recent mergers and acquisitions.
Mike and the team at JBF Consulting advise and consult the very largest shippers on transportation management systems and technology. Typically, JBF customers spend over $100 million per year on transportation. Listen to the episode here:
Mike also highlighted these 3 freight tech trends relevant right now:
Trend 1: Mergers and acquisitions in the TMS business mean some shippers will find themselves with a new TMS provider, who may not support their application. Some large shippers are faced with painful integrations and implementations that they had not planned as a result of their TMS provider getting acquired or merging with another provider.
Trend 2: Migration of on-premise solutions to the cloud. Many large shippers are using transportation management systems that are on-premise solutions, which is installed on the customer’s server.
As TMS providers migrate their systems to the cloud, some shippers are experiencing disruptions. Many companies using on-premise solutions are very large shippers so any interruption of service can be very costly.
Migration to the cloud is also expensive, and time-consuming for very large shippers. Because the migration to the cloud is often like starting over, many large shippers decide to re-evaluate their TMS providers before moving to the cloud.
Trend 3: Transportation management systems are evolving to become easier to integrate and implement. TMS solutions are also focusing on being expert at one function (inch wide – mile deep) rather than being mediocre at many functions (mile wide – inch deep). Integrations will still be necessary, but hopefully they will get easier.
Companies like Turvo are unifying systems, internal and external, providing one end-to-end platform, which enables companies to use the very best system for the job, while seamlessly connecting to the platform.
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About the Author
Mike Mulqueen is the Executive Principal of Strategy & Innovation at JBF Consulting. Mike is a leading expert in logistics solutions with over 30 years managing, designing and implementing freight transport technology. His functional expertise is in Multi-modal Transportation Management, Supply Chain Visibility, and Transportation Modeling. Mike earned his master’s degree in engineering and logistics from MIT and BS in business and marketing from University of Maryland.
About JBF Consulting
Since 2003, we’ve been helping shippers of all sizes and across many industries select, implement and squeeze as much value as possible out of their logistics systems. We speak your language — not consultant-speak – and we get to know you. Our leadership team has over 100 years of logistics and TMS implementation experience. Because we operate in a niche — we’re not all things to all people — our team members have a very specialized skill set: logistics operations experience + transportation technology + communication and problem-solving skills + a bunch of other cool stuff.
