Con-Way name change spells out truckload capabilities
Con-Way Inc., best known for its nationally interconnected, regional less-than-truckload services, is changing the name of its Con-way Transportation subsidiary to Con-Way Truckload Services.
The rebranding announced Wednesday coincides with a renewed effort to directly market the company’s truckload capabilities to shippers. Con-Way Truckload started out in January 2005 as the in-house truckload arm of the LTL operation, moving shipments cross country between regional hubs in its Con-way Freight network.
After first building up its capability as a “captive carrier” for its sister LTL companies, Con-Way is ready to aggressively seek outside customers. Con-Way Truckload has expanded its fleet to more than 1,200 pieces of equipment and almost 500 company drivers and 50 independent contractors. And last year it began a regional short-haul operation in the Southeast mirroring other long-haul motor carriers such as ABF Freight Systems that have started regional business models.
Changes keep coming in rapid fire succession at Con-Way, as the company transitions from a transportation holding to an operating company. In April, the company changed its name from CNF and adopted the name of its successful motor carrier business.
Last summer, Con-Way closed its domestic air freight forwarding division and sold its Con-Way Now expedited dedicated delivery service to Panther II to concentrate on its truckload and logistics businesses. Con-Way, based in San Mateo, Calif., also owns Menlo Worldwide Logistics. It also placed its Con-Way Transportation LTL regional subsidiaries under the banner of Con-Way Freight, leaving the name for the truckload operation. Meanwhile, General Motors dissolved its six-year logistics management joint venture with Menlo.
Con-Way’s expansion into truckload follows a recent pattern of trucking companies structuring themselves to offer a multitude of trucking services from truckload to partial load to truck brokerage in much the way logistics companies are expanding across disciplines rather than simply specializing in warehousing, forwarding, customs brokerage, or supply chain management. The object is to keep customers in the fold by meeting all of their needs.
Con-Way Truckload’s non-asset-based brokerage business finds outside truckload and intermodal capacity for shippers.
Con-Way plans to leverage the access it has to hundreds of thousands of LTL and Menlo logistics customers to gain truckload sales. Con-Way Freight’s sales force will create awareness about Con-Way Truckload, “set the hook,” and then hand off talks to Truckload sales experts to design the appropriate service package, said John Labrie, president of Truckload Services.
A survey by the company of Fortune 500-type customers showed that 43 percent of its LTL accounts with national distribution needs have at least 50 percent of their overall shipments moving via truckload, he said. And regionally concentrated shippers also have truckload needs, but often are ignored by large truckload firms looking for regular shipping patterns and greater volume.
“Local customers shipping out of one location may not have the kind of scale to get the attention from asset providers. We have their ear and can give them one-stop shopping,” Labrie said in an interview at the National Industrial Transportation League conference in Fort Lauderdale earlier this week.
Con-Way officials said despite the short-term improvement in available trucking capacity shippers realize there is a need for more capacity to keep up with projections in economic and trade growth.
Con-Way Truckload uses driver teams for fast transcontinental service where the average length of haul is 1,700 miles. The short-haul network operates in nine southeastern states ranging from Tennessee to Florida. It is primarily focused on commercial customers, but also serves Con-Way Freight and Menlo Worldwide. The average length of haul in the Southeast region is 500 miles.