I expect the transportation industry to continue its dependence on access to real-time information this year and to leverage the powerful technology that has been changing the way the industry does business. As the investment in technology increases, we anticipate a significant growth in back-office support to ensure it is maximized. Both technology and outsourcing will have a huge impact on the industry this year.
The more the industry continues to lean on technology, the more it demands from it — and not just in terms of the software itself. Providers will need to develop comprehensive, customer-driven programs that combine technology with experienced customer service and highly trained back-office teams to handle non-critical functions. The approach of wrapping the technology around the needs of the company, as well as supporting it with an experienced team that provides guidance and absorbs some of the workload, is essential to ensure companies have the confidence to buy into even newer technology.
As these advancements emerge, there will be a shift from resisting back-office support to embracing it. It has been our experience that once the benefits of outsourcing of non-critical functions have been understood, there is a reassessing of the entire workload, and additional functions, such as reporting of compliance data, are shifted to the back-office service partner, thus allowing transportation provider to focus on their core business and the one-on-one relationships with their clients. Combining great technology with accurate, skilled back-office staff allows for a leaner, more customer-relationship-focused transportation provider.
Clearly, the relationship between the client and the software/back-office service provider becomes a very tightly interwoven partnership, making a software vendor selection a critical business process. The decision is not just about the details of the software, but also about the bigger picture of deciding with whom you want a long-term, day-to-day partnership.
Steve Pniewski, President and CEO, ARTEMUS Transportation Solutions