The Logistics of Logistics Freight Tech Trends with Mike Mulqueen
Mike Mulqueen and Joe Lynch discuss freight tech trends. Mike is a Partner and Strategy Practice Lead at JBF Consulting a company that integrates a supply chain execution strategy and systems for logistics-intensive companies.
About Mike MulqueenMike Mulqueen is a Partner and Strategy Practice Lead at JBF Consulting. Mike is a leading expert in logistics technology solutions with over 30 years of managing, designing, and implementing freight transport systems. His functional expertise is in Multi-modal Transportation Management, Supply Chain Visibility, and Transportation Modeling. Mike earned a Master of Engineering degree from MIT and a Bachelor of Science degree in Business/Marketing from the University of Maryland.
About JBF ConsultingJBF Consulting is a supply chain execution strategy and systems integrator for logistics-intensive companies of every size and any industry. JBF's background and deep experience in the field of commercial logistics technology implementation position them as industry leaders whose craftsmanship exceeds client expectations. JBF expedites the transformation of supply chains through logistics & technology strategy, commercial & bespoke software implementation, and analytics & optimization.
Key Takeaways: Freight Tech Trends- Mike Mulqueen and the team at JBF Consulting advise and consult the very largest shippers on transportation management systems and technology. Typically, JBF customers spend over $100 million per year on transportation.
- Because of their large spend, JBF's customers usually buy their own transportation management systems. In the interview, Mike discussed the largest TMS companies and some of the recent mergers and acquisitions.
- Mike also highlighted the 3 freight tech trends that he thinks are relevant right now.
- Trend 1: Mergers and acquisitions in the TMS business mean some shippers will find themselves with a new TMS provider, who may not support their application. Some large shippers are faced with painful integrations and implementations that they had not planned as a result of their TMS provider getting acquired or merging with another provider.
- Trend 2: Migration of on-premise solutions to the cloud. Many large shippers are using transportation management systems that are on-premise solutions, which is installed on the customer's server. As TMS providers migrate their systems to the cloud, some shippers are experiencing disruptions. Many companies using on-premise solutions are very large shippers so any interruption of service can be very costly. Migration to the cloud is also expensive, and time-consuming for very large shippers. Because the migration to the cloud is often like starting over, many large shippers decide to re-evaluate their TMS providers before moving to the cloud.
- Trend 3: Transportation management systems are evolving to become easier to integrate and implement. TMS solutions are also focusing on being expert at one function (inch wide – mile deep) rather than being mediocre at many functions (mile wide – inch deep). Integrations will still be necessary, but hopefully they will get easier. Companies like Turvo are unifying systems, internal and external, providing one end-to-end platform, which enables companies to use the very best system for the job, while seamlessly connecting to the platform.
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