This fireside chat recap is from Day 2 of FreightWaves’ Future of Freight Festival live event in Chattanooga, Tennessee. For more information on the event, click here.
FIRESIDE CHAT TOPIC: Renee Krug talks about her logistics experience, Six Sigma, process improvement and the system that Transflo is using.
DETAILS: As a technology company, Transflo developed an application running end-to-end solutions for anything from the front end, such as dispatching and invoicing, and automating the back end of the transportation process by digitizing payments to get carriers paid faster. Digitizing is expediting, and through process automation, resources can be reallocated to areas that are more revenue-generating or into customer relationships.
SPEAKERS: FreightWaves’ Kevin Hill and CEO of Transflo Renee Krug
BIO: Renee Krug is the CEO of Transflo, the leading mobile, telematics and business process automation provider to the transportation industry in the United States and Canada. Prior to Transflo, she served as CFO and then CEO at GlobalTranz, where she led revenue growth from $300 million to $2 billion through rapid organic expansion and 11 acquisitions during her six-year tenure. Other previous experience includes CFO of Clear Channel Outdoor and leadership roles at Knight-Swift and Honeywell. In 2018, she won the Distinguished Woman in Logistics Award by Women in Trucking Association. Krug and her family live in Phoenix.
KEY QUOTES FROM KRUG:
“At this time it is more important than ever to think about automation and how you might automate some of your processes. This is a way for smaller brokerages to really save money: the ability to build your customers and cash flow faster while developing carrier relationships by paying them quicker.”
“Thinking about how this world has changed over the last 10 years or so, brokerages are working a lot more with smaller carriers, so getting them paid faster is really important. Also, on the factor side, factors have really grown rapidly over the last few years. We work with carriers and brokers to verify that process between the two; 50- 75% of brokers’ payables are now paid to a factor and not directly to the carrier, so the dynamic between the two is really interesting.”
“Some of these jobs are very routine and mundane. Think about the ‘great resignation’ from a couple of years ago. It was very hard to get people to fill roles and when you are, it is error-prone because sitting and keying data and information is ripe for having a lot of errors and issues. Fast forward to now. People are coming back into the workforce. However, they cost 20-30% more when it comes to the wages paid. So our ability to automate more than 95% of those processes like invoicing, now you can really allocate those resources to different places that your business needs.”