4 DC VELOCITY SEPTEMBER 2014 www.dcvelocity.com
inbound
The road ahead for freight transportation is bound to be a bumpy one,
due to increasing regulation, shrinking capacity, volatile rates, and
high fuel costs. The National Industrial Transportation League (NITL)
hopes to ease the way for shippers, carriers, and other industry players
with its Annual Conference and TransComp Exhibition, scheduled for
Nov. 14–19 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Educational sessions will provide an overview of the current state
of ocean freight, rail transport, and trucking as well as address such
hot topics as omnichannel distribution, the changing parcel shipping
market, and big data. Speakers will include transportation analysts and
consultants, executives from transportation and logistics companies,
and representatives from large shippers.
At the concurrent TransComp show, exhibitors will showcase the
latest information technology and transportation and distribution services. More information can be found at www.nitl.org/annual.htm.
NITL to host conference, trade show for
freight aficionados
If you’re at an industry conference and
there’s a burning question that must be
asked, it’s a good bet that Michael P. Regan
will be the one to ask it. In addition to posing thought-provoking questions and offering commentaries from the floor, Regan,
the founder and chief of relationship development at the consulting firm TranzAct
Technologies Inc., can often be found on the
podium, giving motivational presentations
on career development for logistics and
supply chain professionals.
Regan’s contributions to the field will be formally recognized
later this month when he receives the 2014 Distinguished Service
Award from the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals
(CSCMP) at its Annual Global Conference in San Antonio. The award
is bestowed on an individual for contributions to the logistics and supply chain management professions.
Regan co-founded TranzAct in 1984 to help shippers plan and control
transportation expenditures. By 2000, it had become the nation’s largest
privately held freight payment company. He has served on the boards
of such industry groups as the American Society of Transportation
& Logistics, the National Industrial Transportation League, the
Transportation Intermediaries Association, and NASSTRAC.
Prior to founding TranzAct, Regan worked for Bank of America,
PwC, and the Union Pacific Corp. A certified public accountant, he
earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration at the University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Regan to receive CSCMP’s Distinguished
Service Award
On Aug. 11, 1994, a U.S. consumer
made what is believed to have been the
world’s first online purchase: a compact
disc recording by the British rock musi-
cian Sting. Like it or not, that transac-
tion transformed commerce forever.
Today, online orders are so common-
place that for some age demographics
(think younger than you) the idea of
buying a product in a store is almost a
foreign concept. Yet consumers initially
were cool to the concept, said Stephen
Olugbode, a senior analyst at the con-
sulting firm Transport Intelligence (Ti)
in a communiqué. Delivery problems,
issues with credit card security, poor
stock availability, and cultural inertia
kept many consumers away, he said.
The growth of Internet shopping has
been driven in part by logistics and
express companies’ ability to adapt
their networks to the new form of
commerce. As customers’ expectations
have continued to grow, so has the
sophistication of these logistical sup-
port systems. Information technolo-
gy has become the key differentiator.
Today, customers can choose one-hour
windows for their deliveries and can
receive text messages updating them on
the location of their purchases.
E-commerce fulfillment is more
complex than store-based logistics,
with goods being picked in a different
way and often from different locations.
As a result, many companies are begin-
ning to question whether today’s online
fulfillment models are viable over the
long term, according to Olugbode.
The added complexities of the pro-
cess, combined with the increased labor
expense associated with picking and
packing, mean logistics costs for online
fulfillment are much higher than for
brick-and-mortar retailing, he said.
The upshot of all this? An oppor-
tunity for logistics providers to devel-
op attractive outsourcing solutions for
online merchants, Olugbode said.
E-commerce turns 20
