by Fronetics | Aug 12, 2014 | Blog, Content Marketing, Marketing, Social Media, Supply Chain
Connectivity, mobility and accessibility are game changers for business. Companies that recognize this and adapt accordingly will succeed, companies that don’t will not.
Unnovation
Olaf Swantee, CEO of EE, calls this refusal to innovate “unnovation” and defines it as the following:
If unnovation ever made it into the Oxford English Dictionary, I believe the description would be something along the lines of “unnovation (noun) … the refusal to identify, create, embrace or adopt new ideas, leading to the unnecessary and un-timely end to a business, which is ultimately overtaken by external progress.
What are companies who have fallen prey to unnovation? Yell (Google), Borders (Amazon), and Blockbuster Video (Netflix) are just three examples.
Companies within the supply chain, and the supply chain industry in general, are at risk of falling prey to unnovation despite being in a prime position to innovate.
Unnovation and the supply chain
KPMG’s 2013 Global Manufacturing Outlook reported that the US manufacturing sector “seems primed for an era of ‘hyper-innovation,’ in which companies develop not only new products, but also entirely new ways to build them.” Unfortunately, companies within the manufacturing sector are not primed for innovation. KPMG found that 44 percent of survey respondents reported that they still use “old” technologies such as email, fax, and “snail” mail to manage their supply chains.
Similarly, the supply chain industry has been slow to participate in social media and to invest in creating a strong online presence. The primary reason: a lack of understanding of the business case or value.
Participating in social media and investing in creating a strong online presence are fundamentally different from the traditional strategies which companies within the supply chain industry have employed to attract new customers, foster relationships with current customers, communicate with partners, and grow their bottom line. Because of the stark contrast between “old” and “new,” companies do not recognize how these strategies can positively impact their bottom line and therefore decide to steer clear – they feel engaging is too risky. The reality is that not participating is risky; not participating is unnovation.
These companies embrace change
Keychain Logistics
Companies that choose to unnovate will be eclipsed by companies who embrace the world of mobility, connectivity and accessibility. Keychain Logistics is one company that has decided to embrace change.
Bryan Beshore, Keychain’s founder, recognized the changes taking place and decided not just to embrace them, but to also capitalize on them. Keychain leveraged the ideas of mobility, connectivity and accessibility and created a new way for the freight transportation industry to conduct business. Keychain is a marketplace that connects drivers directly with shippers – and is available via mobile app.
Keychain has also become an active participant on social media. This participation has enabled the company to shape their offering with a solid understanding of what people want from a transportation provider. Furthermore, Beshore notes that social media has helped grow their business: “From phone calls to interviews, crowdfunded campaign partnerships, and beyond, social media has certainly helped us grow our business.”
Cerasis
Another company that has been successful – Cerasis. For 15 years the freight logistics company used traditional sales and marketing strategies. This strategy worked; however, the company recognized that if it were going to remain competitive and grow it needed to adapt. The company launched a digital, social media, and content marketing strategy. The strategy lead to an increase in website traffic of close to 670 percent, an increase in search visits by close to 2,190 percent and, most importantly, the company acquired 35 new customers – a significant number for the industry.
Swantee believes that if companies choose unnovation, “Ultimately, it could lead to disastrous consequences for their businesses, their staff and their future.” I agree. If a company wants to remain relevant and competitive, and if a company wants to grow – it needs to recognize that connectivity, mobility and accessibility are game changers for business.
by Fronetics | Aug 12, 2014 | Blog, Content Marketing, Marketing, Social Media, Supply Chain
Connectivity, mobility and accessibility are game changers for business. Companies that recognize this and adapt accordingly will succeed, companies that don’t will not.
Unnovation
Olaf Swantee, CEO of EE, calls this refusal to innovate “unnovation” and defines it as the following:
If unnovation ever made it into the Oxford English Dictionary, I believe the description would be something along the lines of “unnovation (noun) … the refusal to identify, create, embrace or adopt new ideas, leading to the unnecessary and un-timely end to a business, which is ultimately overtaken by external progress.
What are companies who have fallen prey to unnovation? Yell (Google), Borders (Amazon), and Blockbuster Video (Netflix) are just three examples.
Companies within the supply chain, and the supply chain industry in general, are at risk of falling prey to unnovation despite being in a prime position to innovate.
Unnovation and the supply chain
KPMG’s 2013 Global Manufacturing Outlook reported that the US manufacturing sector “seems primed for an era of ‘hyper-innovation,’ in which companies develop not only new products, but also entirely new ways to build them.” Unfortunately, companies within the manufacturing sector are not primed for innovation. KPMG found that 44 percent of survey respondents reported that they still use “old” technologies such as email, fax, and “snail” mail to manage their supply chains.
Similarly, the supply chain industry has been slow to participate in social media and to invest in creating a strong online presence. The primary reason: a lack of understanding of the business case or value.
Participating in social media and investing in creating a strong online presence are fundamentally different from the traditional strategies which companies within the supply chain industry have employed to attract new customers, foster relationships with current customers, communicate with partners, and grow their bottom line. Because of the stark contrast between “old” and “new,” companies do not recognize how these strategies can positively impact their bottom line and therefore decide to steer clear – they feel engaging is too risky. The reality is that not participating is risky; not participating is unnovation.
These companies embrace change
Keychain Logistics
Companies that choose to unnovate will be eclipsed by companies who embrace the world of mobility, connectivity and accessibility. Keychain Logistics is one company that has decided to embrace change.
Bryan Beshore, Keychain’s founder, recognized the changes taking place and decided not just to embrace them, but to also capitalize on them. Keychain leveraged the ideas of mobility, connectivity and accessibility and created a new way for the freight transportation industry to conduct business. Keychain is a marketplace that connects drivers directly with shippers – and is available via mobile app.
Keychain has also become an active participant on social media. This participation has enabled the company to shape their offering with a solid understanding of what people want from a transportation provider. Furthermore, Beshore notes that social media has helped grow their business: “From phone calls to interviews, crowdfunded campaign partnerships, and beyond, social media has certainly helped us grow our business.”
Cerasis
Another company that has been successful – Cerasis. For 15 years the freight logistics company used traditional sales and marketing strategies. This strategy worked; however, the company recognized that if it were going to remain competitive and grow it needed to adapt. The company launched a digital, social media, and content marketing strategy. The strategy lead to an increase in website traffic of close to 670 percent, an increase in search visits by close to 2,190 percent and, most importantly, the company acquired 35 new customers – a significant number for the industry.
Swantee believes that if companies choose unnovation, “Ultimately, it could lead to disastrous consequences for their businesses, their staff and their future.” I agree. If a company wants to remain relevant and competitive, and if a company wants to grow – it needs to recognize that connectivity, mobility and accessibility are game changers for business.
by Jennifer Hart Yim | Aug 7, 2014 | Blog, Marketing, Social Media, Supply Chain, Transportation & Trucking
This guest post is written by Keychain Logistics. Keychain Logistics is a leading transportation provider enabling businesses to directly engage carriers, track shipments, and monitor its logistics needs online.
It’s 2012. Platforms like Uber, Airbnb, and Homejoy are growing rapidly. New customers are signing up via search, paid referrals, and social media. Marketing teams at each are delicately balancing the supply and demand of their output with a spread of calculations that, if not projected carefully, may lead to service outages and upset customers.
Now what’s going on here, and what does this have to do with logistics?
The companies above, alongside many others eating the world today with software, are all marketplaces.
Speaking in online terms, a marketplace is where buyers and sellers of a particular product or service can collaborate in a streamlined process to achieve what they want from the other side.
In exchange for facilitating relationships, thus saving time and resources for the entities wanting to connect, marketplaces may charge subscription fees, transaction commissions, or depend simply on high traffic volume to sell other assets like media space or proprietary content.
But facilitating relationships is only a necessary component, and not a sufficient one, to the success of a marketplace. This is because some buyers and sellers feel that the benefit of a marketplace has been fully realized upon their connection, and thus don’t stick around for the platform to send a bill.
What marketplaces must do to maintain engaged users, then, is create experiences inside the application that remove the incentive to circumvent it. And this is a tough challenge to solve.
One great example of this is Odesk.com, a marketplace connecting freelancers with employers who have projects to outsource. In exchange for this service, Odesk charges a 10% fee to employers per transaction. While this may sound steep, Odesk meets this ask with a suite of free management tools such as random monitor screenshots that let employers track the productivity of an outsourced team member without worrying about being overbilled on hours.
For freelancers, Odesk requires employers to place valid credit cards on file pre-hire, protecting them from employers who might otherwise attempt to avoid a payment. Tools like this make the Odesk platform (and its fees) worth every penny, thus creating a winning marketplace that helps both sides get what they deserve.
That said, let’s get back to logistics and how Keychain Logistics fits into this marketplace, value-adding, supply and demand spectrum.
The transportation industry is one of the largest, oldest conglomerates on the planet, with millions of drivers and thousands of shippers and brokerages in the US alone. The industry is also a fragmented one, with the biggest brokerage only commanding ~3% market share.
If anything is clear about business, it is that markets become more efficient through consolidation. From Coca-Cola buying a new beverage brand to a toy manufacturer owning its own factories, market consolidation is a common practice and, if done right, typically results in positive benefits for end-customers such as lower prices, higher quality, and so forth.
But for a myriad of reasons we won’t go into today, this kind of consolidation has yet to happen in the transportation industry.
Introducing Keychain.
Keychain is a marketplace connecting drivers directly with shippers, and the benefits are three-fold:
1. Shippers (effectively, employers) can bypass expensive commissions by man-powered brokerages,
2. drivers can book loads while on the go, and
3. Keychain verifies user insurance policies and other legal compliance measures, prior to allowing entry to the platform.
To achieve the win-win harmony of a successful marketplace, not only does Keychain facilitate the relationships but it also addresses the circumvention component with tools for drivers and shippers such as mobile apps, online dashboards, easy payment gateways, and in-app communications between parties.
Keychain is the technological consolidation of a market that just won’t give up its antiquated methods. Together, we can bring much needed efficiency to the efficiency business: logistics.
by Fronetics | Aug 6, 2014 | Blog, Logistics, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy, Supply Chain, Transportation & Trucking
Keychain Logistics has made two bold promises. The company has promised truckers that they will never drive empty again and has promised shippers that Keychain will improve their bottom line.
Can the company deliver on these promises?
Who is Keychain Logistics?
Keychain is a leading transportation provider enabling businesses to directly engage carriers, track shipments, and monitor its logistics needs online.
According to Bryan Beshore, the company’s founder, Keychain grew out of the idea that a technology driven marketplace could operate with significantly lower overhead than a manual, human powered brokerage:
“My initial contact with the industry was in 2000. I have researched, analyzed, and thought about the industry ever since. Keychain is a product in understanding the fundamental efficiency problems the third party logistics industry has faced for a long time.”
Beshore goes on to point out that while building a technology company is tough, building Keychain was easier than anticipated:
“With Keychain it was a natural process and easier than I had imagined. I believe the reason for this is twofold: the challenges this industry faces are huge, and the solutions we are building to meet those problems are really fun to solve. Because our work directly affects the wallets of our users (increased pay for drivers, better rates for shippers), we are effectively helping people create better lifestyles for themselves and their families, and that’s really rewarding.”
The company was slated to be built in 2007; however, the timing was not right given the low proliferation of internet-connected mobile devices (500 million). Beshore waited. In 2012 he decided to move forward with the launch of the company (the number of internet connected devices reached 8.7 billion in 2012).
How does it work?
One can draw a parallel between Keychain and Uber – the company removes the broker and connects truckers directly with shippers therefore enabling truckers to focus on driving and shippers to focus on selling products.
Keychain is a marketplace for truckers to book commercial shipments directly with shippers. The company’s technology matches owner operator drivers (and small fleets) with shippers who rely on Keychain Logistics to find the ideal carrier for their freight.
The core of the company’s platform is their network of ten-of-thousands of carriers throughout the US who are connected 24/7/365 via Keychain’s iOS, Android, and Windows phone apps. Keychain can instantly communicate load opportunities to independent owner-operators, 97 percent of whom operate in fleets of 20 trucks or less, and small carrier fleets.
Too good to be true?
One of the biggest challenges the company has faced is that it is perceived as being “too good to be true.” Beshore:
“The transportation industry is traditional and technologically far behind. Because of this, the inherent challenge to sharing our offering is overcoming the “too good to be true” bias. While many of our potential customers have wanted a product like ours for a while, they either don’t know how to articulate it in a Google search or are skeptical that tech companies like Keychain are committed to solving their problems.”
Solving immediate need
Keychain has been working to overcome the perception of being too good to be true. It has been talking to current users, and has honed in on developing a solid marketing message. The message – we can solve your immediate need.
Not expressing the full-vision up front has been a challenge when Keychain reaches out to companies with whom they have little or no relationship; however, they have found that solving an immediate need is what gets companies excited.
What immediate need(s) can the company address? According to Beshore: “For shippers, this is getting them access to trucks, sometimes within just minutes of our first contact. For drivers, this means getting them a paying load when they’re stuck at a rest stop, are far from home, or simply need a line-haul out.”
Leveraging social media to grow the company
The company has found that one of the best ways to use social media is for listening. Rather than spend time and money putting together and distributing sales literature, the company searches for relevant industry hashtags (i.e.: #trucking) to see what people are talking about, and more importantly what they care about. By using social media this way, Keychain is an audience to users instead of the other way around. This has enabled the company to shape their offering with a solid understanding of what people want from a transportation provider.
“From phone calls to interviews, crowdfunded campaign partnerships, and beyond, social media has certainly helped us grow our business,” says Beshore.
Can they deliver?
Can Keychain deliver on their bold promises? Their customers believe so. Here is what three customers say about the company:
“With Keychain I no longer have to waste hours on logistics. Their platform makes it easy to quickly enter shipment details and receive the most competitive rates available.” Marc DeVidts, Double Robotics
“Keychain gives us instant access to thousands of reliable carriers nationwide. It’s the most efficient and cost effective tool we’ve found.” Nathan Brown, Reclaimed American Hardwood
“Within minutes I can enter my shipment details and Keychain handles the rest. Annoying phone calls and exorbitant broker fees are over.” Ad Sachan, Treeline Woodworks.
by Fronetics | Aug 6, 2014 | Blog, Logistics, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy, Supply Chain, Transportation & Trucking
Keychain Logistics has made two bold promises. The company has promised truckers that they will never drive empty again and has promised shippers that Keychain will improve their bottom line.
Can the company deliver on these promises?
Who is Keychain Logistics?
Keychain is a leading transportation provider enabling businesses to directly engage carriers, track shipments, and monitor its logistics needs online.
According to Bryan Beshore, the company’s founder, Keychain grew out of the idea that a technology driven marketplace could operate with significantly lower overhead than a manual, human powered brokerage:
“My initial contact with the industry was in 2000. I have researched, analyzed, and thought about the industry ever since. Keychain is a product in understanding the fundamental efficiency problems the third party logistics industry has faced for a long time.”
Beshore goes on to point out that while building a technology company is tough, building Keychain was easier than anticipated:
“With Keychain it was a natural process and easier than I had imagined. I believe the reason for this is twofold: the challenges this industry faces are huge, and the solutions we are building to meet those problems are really fun to solve. Because our work directly affects the wallets of our users (increased pay for drivers, better rates for shippers), we are effectively helping people create better lifestyles for themselves and their families, and that’s really rewarding.”
The company was slated to be built in 2007; however, the timing was not right given the low proliferation of internet-connected mobile devices (500 million). Beshore waited. In 2012 he decided to move forward with the launch of the company (the number of internet connected devices reached 8.7 billion in 2012).
How does it work?
One can draw a parallel between Keychain and Uber – the company removes the broker and connects truckers directly with shippers therefore enabling truckers to focus on driving and shippers to focus on selling products.
Keychain is a marketplace for truckers to book commercial shipments directly with shippers. The company’s technology matches owner operator drivers (and small fleets) with shippers who rely on Keychain Logistics to find the ideal carrier for their freight.
The core of the company’s platform is their network of ten-of-thousands of carriers throughout the US who are connected 24/7/365 via Keychain’s iOS, Android, and Windows phone apps. Keychain can instantly communicate load opportunities to independent owner-operators, 97 percent of whom operate in fleets of 20 trucks or less, and small carrier fleets.
Too good to be true?
One of the biggest challenges the company has faced is that it is perceived as being “too good to be true.” Beshore:
“The transportation industry is traditional and technologically far behind. Because of this, the inherent challenge to sharing our offering is overcoming the “too good to be true” bias. While many of our potential customers have wanted a product like ours for a while, they either don’t know how to articulate it in a Google search or are skeptical that tech companies like Keychain are committed to solving their problems.”
Solving immediate need
Keychain has been working to overcome the perception of being too good to be true. It has been talking to current users, and has honed in on developing a solid marketing message. The message – we can solve your immediate need.
Not expressing the full-vision up front has been a challenge when Keychain reaches out to companies with whom they have little or no relationship; however, they have found that solving an immediate need is what gets companies excited.
What immediate need(s) can the company address? According to Beshore: “For shippers, this is getting them access to trucks, sometimes within just minutes of our first contact. For drivers, this means getting them a paying load when they’re stuck at a rest stop, are far from home, or simply need a line-haul out.”
Leveraging social media to grow the company
The company has found that one of the best ways to use social media is for listening. Rather than spend time and money putting together and distributing sales literature, the company searches for relevant industry hashtags (i.e.: #trucking) to see what people are talking about, and more importantly what they care about. By using social media this way, Keychain is an audience to users instead of the other way around. This has enabled the company to shape their offering with a solid understanding of what people want from a transportation provider.
“From phone calls to interviews, crowdfunded campaign partnerships, and beyond, social media has certainly helped us grow our business,” says Beshore.
Can they deliver?
Can Keychain deliver on their bold promises? Their customers believe so. Here is what three customers say about the company:
“With Keychain I no longer have to waste hours on logistics. Their platform makes it easy to quickly enter shipment details and receive the most competitive rates available.” Marc DeVidts, Double Robotics
“Keychain gives us instant access to thousands of reliable carriers nationwide. It’s the most efficient and cost effective tool we’ve found.” Nathan Brown, Reclaimed American Hardwood
“Within minutes I can enter my shipment details and Keychain handles the rest. Annoying phone calls and exorbitant broker fees are over.” Ad Sachan, Treeline Woodworks.
