The company has an initiative it’s dubbed Smart Tractor As A Client, or STAAC. It is building on the notion that a smart truck is simply another computer, or client, on the integrated information and data network of the supply chain.
Some other areas of technology McLeod touched on included:
• Cybersecurity: McLeod is hosting a conference on that topic at its Birmingham, Alabama, headquarters on Oct. 23
• Business process automation: With its FlowLogix product, McLeod said, “We’re doing more and more to automate the repetitive tasks, save time, and get the work done on a timely basis,” he said, offering as an example an automated collections process that allows you to set up friendly notifications to go out a certain number of days before the bill is due, including a link that lets them access all the paperwork that went with that load.
• Blockchain: McLeod Software is a co-founder of the Blockchain in Transportation Alliance, which he said is still “alive and well, with committees at work developing standards. “There will be real products that roll out and provide visibility and cooperation between companies in the industry and the supply chain. It’s a technology that was overhyped in the beginning, but it’s coming along just fine.”
‘Not All Technology Spending is Equal’
McLeod also shared some cautionary thoughts about the wave of private investment that has been poured into trucking and logistics in recent years, from motor carriers to digital freight matching.
“Who knew there were so many private equity companies?” he said. “Almost any idea can get funded.” Because McLeod integrates with many different technology offerings (even with some that are owned by competitors),
“many companies come to us, so we’re in a position of seeing companies
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with remarkable and starkly different strategies toward solving the same problem – and we’re in the position of trying to pick some winners.”
He pointed out that previous bubbles have led to busts, including the “dot-com” boom in the early 2000s and the housing bubble that led to the Great Recession when it burst. “I can’t tell you if there’s a bubble” currently in play, he said, “but if there is one, it may be this. With many of these investments, the investor borrows against a very high valuation of the company. Not in all cases, but in many cases, a tremendous amount of borrowing, and they are counting on the acquired company to be able to cover that debt payment. I’m simply saying, be careful.”
Talking to reporters later, McLeod shared his thoughts on how a privately held company such as McLeod, which doesn’t rely on private equity, may have some advantages. “We do feel like we can make decisions for the long term, by comparison to what I see some other companies do inside and outside our industry.”
“To me, taking investment money is like taking a big bet. There’s a time frame; it’s almost like you’ve lit a fuse, and if you don’t get whatever critical mass is defined as [by that deadline], things blow apart.” Although that’s not as bad as it was some years ago when companies earned the derogatory nickname “vulture capitalists,” he said. “I think companies have gotten smarter about how they’ve approached investments.”
In addition, he said, “if you’re developing a product, it’s very important you have people who understand the marketplace. We’ve seen cases where there was lots [of money] poured into a product that didn’t really fit.”
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