By JP Wiggins, VP of Logistics at 3G
We had a great time last week in San Antonio as a sponsor of 3PL XTEND. It’s been a while since we’ve attended in-person events, and this was a great one to kick-start those face-to-face interactions.
We want to thank the Transportation Intermediaries Association (TIA) for putting 3PL XTEND together. We also want to thank everyone that visited our kiosk, spoke with us, and attended our presentation. It’s always a joy to talk to our customers, partners, and others in the industry to see what transportation trends and challenges you all are seeing.
Want a quick recap of the event from our perspective? Keep reading for our highlights and takeaways.
3PL XTEND Recap and Summary
We were very happy to see everyone who came to the event, especially as the transportation industry faces significant challenges and we approach the annual busy season. It’s always great to see how the transportation community comes together to learn from each other and see how others have found solutions that could help their business.
Here are some of the highlights from last week:
- One of the biggest takeaways was the desire for pricing and capacity management technology. Obviously, carrier capacity is a big struggle across the industry, so anything that alleviates those pain points is in demand. Using a complete TMS like 3Gtms helps in these areas as our technology integrates directly with carriers, pricing, and visibility tools.
- We sat down with many industry experts and economists to talk about the state of transportation, ranging from port congestion, capacity issues, warehouse shortages, etc. There’s a consensus from everyone we spoke to that we will still be experiencing COVID for another 18 months to 2 years and that these transportation challenges will likely stay for that period at a minimum.
- We were fortunate to give a presentation in the main hall covering the pitfalls to avoid when expanding your truckload brokerage. At a time where everyone is trying to grow as fast as possible, there are several brokerage stages and processes where we see common challenges, including:
- Adding a mode with little in-house experience
- Growing from brokerage to managed transportation
- Not mapping out end-to-end workflows
During the presentation, we dove deeper into each of these areas. If you want to learn more, you can read our article on Talking Logistics about the subject.
In summary, we had a great few days in San Antonio, and it was a pleasure meeting new people in the industry and reconnecting with those we hadn’t seen for some time. Here’s to many more in-person opportunities in the future!
Trying to determine if a TMS might solve your challenges? Read our guide about building a business case for a TMS to see how you can cut costs and streamline processes across your business.
