One size doesn’t fit all,
grow at your own pace.
Burris Logistics offers
temperature-controlled
warehousing solutions
to support the needs
of producers and
retailers of perishable
food products.
We’re Burris PRW Plus
— where the Plus is our
commitment to your
success as a partner.
Your reputation is our
reputation and we’ll
protect that every step
of the way. You can
trust us to get the job
done, guaranteed!
COMING IN
JANUARY 2020
Learn more about
Burris Logistics in a
Special Edition
from DC Velocity
BURRISLOGISTICS.COM
tion, especially for managing exceptions
and solving urgent issues, still makes a
difference, Turner says.
EMERGENCE OF “MARKETPLACE
SYSTEMS”
Greg Aimi, research vice president with
Gartner Inc., has trod the logistics business’s winding path for nearly 30 years,
running software companies, managing
logistics operations, and studying the
market as a research analyst. He sees this
most recent revolution of digital transportation platforms diverging into two
models.
In one model, companies are essentially “coming up and saying your peo-ple-based [approach] is unnecessary. The
whole process can be automated.” These
tech platforms, Aimi believes, are disin-termediating the traditional broker. They
are licensed brokers who are “allowing
demand to source supply through their
network. I can connect the parties automatically … and let the constituent parties work together directly.” In this case,
the “platform” is doing the transaction.
In the other model, companies are
essentially taking the current traditional
brokerage model and automating the pro-
cess of freight matching, booking capacity,
and tracking loads. Aimi describes these
as “marketplace systems,” which engage
multiple carriers and brokers, “enabling
platforms where the constituents are
doing the transactions themselves” and
carriers are working on the platform with
brokerage houses “to quickly provide
[and secure] quoted capacity.”
He notes that one of the biggest benefits
to a carrier of this third-party multiparty
platform model is a one-to-many rela-
tionship. “As someone [a carrier] who
has capacity, I can put myself on many
networks, but I prefer this [multiparty,
multibroker] one because it is low cost,
it’s more lively, and I get [automated]
matching of supply and demand” that
can be refined and targeted to a specific
geography, city, lane, or type of load, he
explains. In this case, the parties them-
selves still participate in the transaction
but with the support of automated, intel-
ligent systems. It’s also easier and less
time-consuming for the carrier to manage
versus being on multiple single-use
platforms.
He says it is an enabling mar-
ketplace of supply and demand in
which small to mid-market broker-
age players can jump on the plat-
form and have the same technology
power as the big digital guys, but
still with the benefit—and advan-
tage—of what Aimi calls “customer
touch.”
The network is the “big deal,”
Aimi says. But when it’s all said and
done, for traditional brokers and
3PLs, “customer touch will [contin-ue to] make them different.” ;
