The Advantages of Operating Brokerage & Assets within One System
Using PowerBroker within LoadMaster Boosts Customer Service, Streamlines Billing and Settlements, and Improves Productivity for The Boyd Companies
A
By Dwight Bassett, COO and CFO for The Boyd Companies
sset companies that have brokerage divisions often keep
operations for the two units separate. Each side has its own staff, and loads are processed through different systems. There can be any number of reasons why you might choose to conduct business this way, such as tax advantages, ownership history, or company culture. But if there is no compelling reason to keep things separate, you might consider merging these two sides, because there are definite advantages to operating within one system.
The Boyd Companies - Boyd Transportation, Boyd
Logistics, WTI Transport, and Mid Seven Transportation - all specialize in handling flatbed or open deck freight, and we use McLeod across the board. Each company has its own instance of McLeod and they all run on a single server.
Two of the four companies - WTI and Mid Seven - have both assets and brokerage, and in these two cases, we run PowerBroker within LoadMaster instead of having PowerBroker operate independently. When you run PowerBroker within LoadMaster, brokered loads and trucking company loads are contained within the same system.
We gain several advantages from doing it this way:
We can provide better customer service Sometimes customer service personnel who work on the asset side of a company are reluctant to hand freight over to a brokerage, because that means transferring control to a different customer service crew. We don’t have that issue, because we don’t have separate staff who manage brokered loads. With PowerBroker running within LoadMaster, the person who accepts the load will manage it whether it goes on a company truck or gets brokered out.
Our billing and settlements process is more efficient
All of the loads hauled on company trucks, as well as the loads brokered out to other carriers, are processed through the same billing and settlements queues. It doesn’t matter if the load was hauled by a company driver, owner- operator, or broker carriers, the billing and settlements process
34 A C HIEVE MORE
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68
