Fourkites Review

The freight brokerage industry has evolved. It is now much more reliant on technology than it has been in the past. One example of that is the electronic tracking programs for drivers. This allows brokerages and carriers to be able to see the current location of a specific driver.

The industry used to be heavily reliant on truck drivers checking in with their current location, especially before cell phones became popular and widespread. It evolved when cell phones became commonplace and all you needed to do was call the driver or the dispatch in order to get a location. It is now evolving once more with smartphones becoming more popular and affordable.

Fourkites is an application that can be downloaded on a driver's cell phone that has real-time tracking. This allows for less check-calls from brokerages and carriers to find out where the drivers are. Real-time tracking has helped increase safety on the roads since drivers do not have to answer calls as often as they used to. It allows drivers to focus on the road without having to worry about keeping their phone close to them while they expect a call.

There are some disadvantages to an automatic tracking system, however. One problem I have encountered is that when a driver goes through a dead zone, the application cannot send an accurate current location, and it keeps sending the last known location. Since drivers take roads that have poor cellular service, this can be problematic.

Another disadvantage is that you do not know if the driver is the one that has the application on it. Sometimes drivers have other driver's applications on their phones. This causes confusion because brokers think they have a location on the driver even though they are in a different place.

All in all, as advances in technology increase, these problems can be fixed and electronic tracking will be a much more common mean of tracking drivers. free HitCounter

Large Freight Brokerages

Companies that produce products are always going to need to have their products moved from one place to another. This has been the case ever since the semi truck has been invented. The freight brokerage market continues to grow due to products always needing to be moved and the advancements in technology.

What happens when a freight brokerage gets too large?

It is not necessarily bad when brokerages get big, but there can be problems that arise due to the size of the company. When they get big, there is a higher chance that the processes they use to book, track, and close the accounts get to be complicated. There are processes that are used where each stage of the shipment is passed along to another group of people. This works well when a company has a solid internal communication network. If problems arise, everybody can communicate and get it sorted out. If there is a poor internal communication network, not everybody know what is happening with each load and problems can become even bigger problems.

Larger freight brokerages also lose some of the personal touch they have when they get big. Instead of one or two people communicating with the carriers and their drivers, this can turn into a different person communicating with them every time. As I said before, if there is not a good internal communication network set in place, this can cause problems if a person tracking the load does not know what is going on.

System outages also occasionally occur. It is harder for a large company to be able to function if they do not have their tracking and booking programs working. With a smaller firm, it is easier to be able to keep track of who needs help than a large company. free HitCounter

Transportation Management Systems

Transportation Management Systems (TMS for short) are one example of how technology is revolutionizing the freight brokerage industry. Before these types of programs were commonplace in many of the brokerage companies, employees and managers had to keep track of their information themselves. A CEO of a brokerage firm that I had the pleasure of speaking with told me that before these systems were invented, he had to keep track of all of the loads on postcards. He used a bulletin board to pin the cards so everybody that was working had access to the cards they needed.

www.freightquote.com has a great post about TMS systems. In their article, they list some of the advantages and disadvantages that an electronic management system has. This kind of technology allows all employees to access information about all of the loads that they are working on. This saves time, effort, and increases productivity. It also allows them to be able to find information on potential loads and how much they can quote.

The TMS system that I am familiar with has a lot of extra features that allow for advanced planning. The system takes all of the users information for trucking lanes and can give an average price for that specific lane. It also provides estimated times of arrival for the trucks based on the current location and the destination without having to find it on from an external source, such as google maps.

TMS has become essential in the modern workplace for brokerages. It allows for easy access to information, increases efficiency, and allows for a higher volume of loads. free HitCounter

Prediction: Self-Driving Trucks are the Future of Freight

The title says it all. This is a fairly conservative prediction since there have already been massive strides taken in favor of self-driving vehicles. Self-driving cars have been an idea for a long time, but now that idea has spread to shipping freight. Right now, there are not any self-driving trucks that can make the delivery without a human driver, but the technology is getting closer and closer to making it a reality. Arizona has been a testing ground for using self-driving trucks that can only operate on the highways (money.cnn.com). Local roads in cities that have a lot of traffic can cause problems for the trucks, so a human driver is needed to drive through them. They are also needed to get into the receiver and back into the docks to get unloaded.

Uber has expanded their business into self-driving trucks, and is making great progress. Since almost all semis use the highway to get their freight to the delivery, self-driving trucks that can do the long stretches on the highways are getting more and more attention from both trucking companies and freight brokerages. Once companies like Uber can ensure the safety of other drivers and the cargo, they will get much more support from different states.

Freight brokerages and trucking companies will have to implement a system where the load paperwork can be done without having a driver present. This is not a problem yet since there is still a need for drivers to be in the trucks, but if they ever become fully operational without a human, then tracking systems and other checks will have to adapt to the new market. free HitCounter

Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum

The United States of America has implemented import tariffs on steel and aluminum. This tariff was part of a "trade war" that ended up not only hurting brokerage businesses, but trucking companies as well. With less and less loads being ordered from other countries like Canada or China, it is affecting how much market volume there are for trucks. It has done damage to many companies, especially the trucking companies that do intercontinental runs and firms that do business out of the western part of the country. Canada is a huge exporter of steel into the United States and with the tariffs, this has caused a reduction in shipments that Canadian based trucking companies can do (coloadx.com). This unreasonable tariff has lowered a lot of cargo coming to the western part of the country from overseas, which reduces the number of loads taken to other parts of the country. This causes not enough trucks to be available in places where they need things shipped within the United States.

With less trucks being available throughout the country due to a squeezed market, trucking companies are demanding more and more money because they have a lot of available trucks. This hurts the margins that brokerages need to operate and expand since they are not seeing as much revenue as before. With the influx of available trucks and not many loads, the market has seen a lot of fluctuation and a lot of companies are hurting because of it since it is basically a guessing game of when the freight market will be hot or when it will get cold. free HitCounter

CEO of a Freight Brokerage

In my last post, I had the opportunity to sit with and ask a high-ranking executive of a freight brokerage some questions about what he did. This post is going to be about the CEO of that company. He took me to lunch one day and told me a lot about what his experience was with his own company.

As we ate, he mentioned that he started brokering freight out of his own house. He started small and dedicated himself to his business. He told me time and time again that his work ethic was the main reason for his success. He did not go to school for business, but learned everything about the industry from books and experience.

As his company began to take on more and more customers, he was reluctant to hire new employees. He took on the extra work by himself, until a friend of his convinced him to take on more help. It started with a couple of employees, and continued to grow as he became more successful.

His vision was to become a brokerage that excelled in premium service. He wanted to be the company that customers would go to when they had problems or needed something to happen fast. This ideal was the main reason why he landed a lot of accounts from big companies.

What started as a small business, it grew as he hired his daughters to be a big part of the company and its operations. From there, it continually grew into the brokerage it is today. It is not the biggest firm, but it is continually growing.

Hard work was the cornerstone for his success, and he makes sure everyone knows that they can succeed if they "work their tail off at everything they do". free HitCounter

Interview with an Executive

I am extremely lucky to have a friend that is an executive in the freight brokering business. He has been in the industry for over 10 years and has experience in almost all facets of the business. I had the opportunity to have multiple sit-downs with him as we talked about about everything from current markets, past experiences, and tips for being successful in this business.

What does your position require you to do?

There are a lot of responsibilities he has as an executive. He is in charge of his own team and makes sure everything is running efficiently. His main job is to predict future markets so he can position his team in a way that makes them even more successful. This entails looking at the news, looking at market projections, and reporting his findings to the CEO of the company. 

What is the most important part of the job?

Efficiency. In order to grow the company, they must be able to handle a large workload. He achieved this by doing many things. Reevaluating processes that occur throughout the company and implementing programs or different ways of doing things can really make the company more efficient. 

How do you get ahead in this industry?

I was told that the most important things you can do is to work hard and make connections. The more connections you forge across the industry, more opportunities will become available to you. The more contacts you have, the more desirable you are to companies across the board.

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5 Things You Need to Have to be a Successful Broker

If you strive to become a freight broker, or you are curious about what it takes to be one, there are a lot of characteristics you need to have to be able to survive in the business. Here are some of the top characteristics you need to have in order to be successful:

1. Be able to Work Under Pressure- This job has a lot of responsibilities. There are deadlines you must meet in order to complete the job. You must be able to find trucking companies that will take the loads, and you must be able to book them by the time they are supposed to pick up the product.
2. You Must Have Thick Skin- Like I said before, this is a highly stressful job. The people around you are counting on you to complete your job, and your coworkers may get upset if you do not book the loads. The trucking companies can become easily upset if you under quote or lie to them, so you will have to deal with all kinds of emotions in this line of work
3. Be a Good Multi-tasker- Between booking loads and getting information about drivers, you will have many things going on at once. Dealing with dispatchers, drivers, and problems that arise, you must be able to have the mental capacity to handle all the things that are happening.
4. Must Have Good Communication- A broker's lifeblood is email and phone calls. You have to know what to say to different people in different situations in order to be successful. Emailing coworkers and carriers to get information about what is happening with loads is a big part of the job.
5. Be a People-person- While brokering freight, you are going to have to interact with a wide variety of people. The more they like you, the better deals you may be able to make. If you can create a working relationship with carriers, the more likely they will give you a good deal or some of their more reliable drivers.

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