Factoring company OTR Capital announced Tuesday it has rebranded to OTR Solutions, moving from its traditional factoring and back-office expertise to providing its owner-operator and small-to-medium-size carrier clientele solutions to build and scale their businesses and compete with large fleets.
In an exclusive interview with FreightWaves, co-founder and CEO Fritz Owens explained that the move to rebrand as a solutions provider was “simply a more accurate description of who we are today and where we are going in the future.”
“Cash flow and back-office support has always been a large part of what we do,” said Owens. “Yet there are so many other ways to help small and midsized carriers better compete in the industry, to not only survive tough market conditions but thrive during the better days as well.”
Along with the announcement of its rebrand, OTR Solutions will be offering new products to customers through its existing carrier portal. These products include Bolt, a way for carriers to receive “direct-to-debit” payments; a driver safety rating scorecard, which constantly monitors a carrier’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration score; a fuel advance app to receive advances even in a high-fuel-cost economy; and instant financing for lumper fees with a flat fee of $9.
“When we started in 2011, the majority of drivers didn’t have a smartphone in their cab,” said Owens. “But with technology available to us, we are no longer confined to traditional banking hours and specific methods of payment. Our carrier clients now have the ability to integrate with our partners in our transportation ecosystem to provide things like real-time tracking status, availability of freight, safety and compliance information.”
Owens also noted a new service called Elevate, which will give over 10,000 carriers in the company’s network a platform to build branded domains and customizable websites, giving SMB carriers a chance to mimic the technological footprint of their large fleet competitors.
“Many small trucking companies don’t have a professional presence online,” said Owens. “From using our internal data, on average, those companies without that presence get paid 5 to 10% less on loads if they are selling with a Hotmail, AOL or Yahoo email address. … We think we can really help them build professional businesses and ultimately get paid more for the hard work they do.”
Providing solutions outside of factoring is not new to the OTR brand. The company has partnered with a number of transportation-related companies to build value-adding relationships between them and OTR’s carrier clients.
For example, OTR has worked with Marquee Insurance Group to provide competitive insurance and benefits quotes and with freight brokerage Nolan Transportation Group to help find freight. It has also connected with trucking knowledge platforms like the Transportation and Logistics Clubhouse, transportation law platform MadGaines and the Leading Ladies of Logistix to help owner-operators network and gain understanding of how to scale and sustain a trucking company.
For Grace Maher, chief operating officer of OTR Solutions, this step forward for the company is also about opening up lines of communication between the 97.4% of carriers in the domestic market that operate 20 or fewer trucks and the logistics providers that help keep these carriers’ wheels moving.
“While it’s our core business and we do it better than anyone else, it’s been our mission to do everything we can to help the small carrier succeed, and to help brokers efficiently and effectively transact with a broad segment of the market,” said Maher. “Through those solutions we currently have, the technology that we’re building, and the partners we’ve brought on board, we are going to continue to expand our menu of tools and services as we formally change our brand to OTR Solutions.”
Staff writer Corey Smith contributed to this report.
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