Last week I attended CSCMP’s annual conference in Nashville. Rick Blasgen and his team put together another outstanding conference that addressed the types of critical issues that shippers are facing as they struggle to manage freight costs in the current transportation environment.
Recently, I was having a conversation with some trucking company executives about the current transportation marketplace and how it has been impacting shippers. During the conversation one of the executives highlighted the flaws in the procurement strategies that a lot of shippers use to select carriers and award business.
Recently I had a challenging conversation with a CEO who also happens to be a friend. He called to talk about the impact that rising freight costs are having on profitability. After listening for a while, I interrupted and said, "I get it. You're upset. But you need to stop blaming and start supporting your transportation people." In fact, I felt so strongly about this that I made it the topic in my recent “Note to CEO" blog post.
"Awesome! Exceeded my expectations!"
Last week, in my "What blew your freight budget?" blog post in Logistics Management we addressed the fact that a whole bunch of shippers are living with blown freight budgets in 2018. I think that is why I have received several calls/ emails from folks who are asking for help in gathering information to prepare their 2019 freight budgets.
Recently I've been getting calls from transportation executives who are putting together their transportation budgets/plans for 2019 and looking for advice. One told me he was concerned because his 2018 freight budget is so out of whack that if the same thing happens in 2019, he'll be calling me asking for help on how to write a better resume!
