This fireside chat recap is from Day 1 of FreightWaves’ The Future of Supply Chain live event being held in Rogers, Arkansas. For more information and content from the event, click here.
FIRESIDE CHAT TOPIC: Next-level supply chain digitization and collaboration
DETAILS: Digitization is happening throughout the logistics and transportation industry but at different rates. There is an ongoing, deep need for all parties of the supply chain to work together to benefit the end customer. Technology and innovation create efficiencies and higher levels of productivity and customer satisfaction.
SPEAKERS: EJ Smith, group director of RyderShare at Ryder, and Daniel Pickett, chief technology officer for FreightWaves.
BIO: Smith is the group director of product development and customer success for Ryder’s RyderShare SCS and DTS Transportation. He was previously Ryder’s head of marketing for fleet management solutions and senior director of marketing for leasing and maintenance.
KEY QUOTES FROM SMITH:
“End-to-end visibility is about moving from a what and a where to a how and a why. We’ve been on this evolutionary path over the last three or four years. In the beginning, it was ‘where’s the truck?’ Now we’ve moved on to what’s on the truck and the how and the why — information like ETAs and product quality, things that allow you to make faster and better decisions.”
“People are so critical. The technology can be great, but without people behind it, it’s not as efficient or effective. The challenge that we’re seeing is getting folks to embrace technology and use it in the right way. When you put a product out there, there’s a lot of features and functionality — and maybe only 20% or 30% of it gets used. So it’s really about communicating the value of what your product can deliver and getting customers to realize that.”
“Productivity is a big, big benefit. I’ve had conversations where customers say they save 15 minutes a day [using the visibility platform] and conversations where customers say they save two hours a day. And that doesn’t always lead to reduced headcount. Productivity in and of itself doesn’t necessarily have to be about headcount reduction. It can be about taking what somebody is doing and giving them more time to do the things a company finds more value in.”