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26 DC VELOCITY JANUARY 2017 www.dcvelocity.com
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AWe have found that reductions of 2 to 5 percent a year, while increasing our revenue, is meaningful and
impactful.
QAre shippers on the same page with Home Depot as far as the priority they place on sustainability?
AThere are certainly a lot of shippers that are on the same page. The reason why Home
Depot is so committed, and why I think the
other companies are too, is that it is the right
thing to do.
Also, our customers are expecting it. If there
is no better reason to become very green, it is
that customers are expecting the companies
they do business with to be sustainable and to
make good decisions on that.
QAre you surprised that oil prices, and by extension die- sel fuel prices, have stayed so low for such a prolonged
period?
AThe decline in oil prices has been a little bit of a sur- prise. I don’t know that we would have expected prices
to stay this low for this long.
Hopefully, it will continue. From a budget perspective, it
is an advantage.
QWhat is your outlook for 2017 on truck rates, capacity, driver availability, and the impact of current and proposed federal regulations?
ACertainly, it was a favorable shipper market in 2016. Home Depot is somewhat protected from the ebbs and
flows because of the way we do our contracts. We perform
an annual bid process that in the case of the
current contract year, began in August and will
run into next August. Our high seasonal activity normally takes place in the first half of the
calendar year, as opposed to the back half as is
typical for most retailers. So we are able to take
advantage of some things that other shippers
and retailers are not able to. That being said,
supply and demand issues are driven by the
economy, so an improving economy will put
pressure on capacity.
We recognize that new drivers are not entering the field
at the same rate they did in previous decades, so we are
very cognizant of the potential driver shortage and capacity
tightness. That is where alternative modes like intermodal
come into play. As for issues like mandatory installation of
electronic logging devices (ELDs) in truck cabs, the carriers
we do business with are well prepared for that, so we expect
the implementation to have a minimal impact on us.
