"The 2000s will be the age of strategic partnerships and information systems."
Modern transportation of goods had its start at the beginning of this century and is leaving it with a brand new start. The 1900s can be classified as the century of equipment - the combustion engine, the diesel engine, the pneumatic tire, the radial tire, the retread tire; and later the electronic engine, antilock brakes, air-ride suspensions, etc.
The environment that trucks operate in has also changed - a national highway system, better roads, better maintained rural routes, deregulation, longer, wider, heavier vehicles, government regulations, and the railroad's inability to meet the increasing demand of consumers.
The focus of this last century was vehicle technology and equipment acquisition. An example of this is the nickname Preston Trucking gave itself many years ago, "The 151 Line," alluding to how impressive Preston was for fielding 151 pieces of equipment. This year, with over 30,000 pieces of equipment, Preston went bankrupt.
What happened? They certainly had a competent management and sales staff and dedicated truck operators. But the times, they are a changing.
The 2000s will be the age of strategic partnerships and information systems. For the transportation industry, size won't matter if trucking companies can work with their customers to discover innovative ways to reduce, enhance and/or improve the shipment of their customers' goods. The Internet and e-commerce are helping us do all this with fast and fantastic results.
This new way of approaching a customer in a true partnership with information systems is what Hercules has been doing for over 48 years. Hercules was founded as a customer-owned company. By our makeup, we've learned to work with our customers in a true information-system partnership because they guide us.
Hercules is a smaller, high-tech custom manufacturer that works with fleets to develop customer-specific, information-based, cost-effective solutions to fleet problems. We are transportation cost consultants, not tire and retread salesmen. It's the only way we know how to be. It's in our blood.
Hercules can work with your fleet to design a customized solution. Hercules distributes over seven major new truck tire brands, has developed over six hundred "customer-application" specific rubber compounds, and offers both precure and mold cure retreading, as well as four other retreading systems designed for specific customer applications.
We can help develop an information system that cuts through all the massive amounts of data and provide you with real tools to help make intelligent decisions to grow your business profitably. We have no hidden agenda to sell our products. Our agenda is to partner with our dealer and fleet customers and to develop products and programs to reduce the major cost-drivers at the fleet level.
It's nice to see the world taking our lead into the 21st century. Give us a call and let us do what we were created to do - help you help yourself.
