FreightWaves Chief Strategy Officer John “JT” Engstrom welcomed David Carpenter and Praveen Boppana of Bennett International Group to the FreightWavesTV show, “Fuller Speed Ahead,” on Thursday to discuss the logistics company’s expanding services.
Bennett provides a diversified offering of commercial trucking and logistics services, including 3PL/4PL logistics, warehousing and customs brokerage, among others.
Vice President of Customer Solutions David Carpenter explained that Bennett hauls virtually everything: from construction equipment and farm machinery to aerospace shipments.
The McDonough, Georgia-based transportation and logistics provider offers cross-border shipping primarily between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada but is growing its global solutions as well.
Despite the economic woes of the 2018 freight economy, Carpenter labeled the year an “anomaly.” He attributed Bennett’s success in taking care of the company’s strategic partners during that period to its ability to sustain capacity through tough times.
“We’ve had a really great 2019 when quite a few companies were going out of business,” Carpenter said. “Others are struggling and we hear the woes of the marketplace, but don’t get me wrong: We could have more freight but our position in the marketplace is very strong.”
Carpenter added that the company’s customers rely on Bennett to navigate the market. In that regard, the company expressed great interest in FreightWaves SONAR market data to increase productivity and better serve its customers.
“We need to take that next step by leveraging [FreightWaves] data from the general markets and make it specific to Bennett and learn how to drive pricing, relationships, sufficiencies and the way we serve our customers.”
Director of Technology Praveen Boppana said he is optimistic about utilizing SONAR’s predictive analytics to furnish his sales team, drivers and agents with game-changing insights.
“I was lucky enough to try out SONAR at Transparency19,” Boppana said of FreightWaves’ annual Atlanta event dedicated to the hottest trends in freight-tech. “At that time, I saw the potential in it and how we could use the data in our systems.”
