Trucking must continue to innovate
A new report from Research and Markets focuses on the growth of e-commerce for businesses selling medium- and heavy-duty truck and trailer parts in North America.
One interesting quote from the report’s web page was, “Traditional distributors with existing physical location will dominate the online parts market while being challenged by pure players.”
Lots of companies are mentioned in the report, including FindItParts. One area of the report talks about “key companies that are capable of disrupting this space with their innovative offerings and operating processes.”
See also: Fostering creativity in trucking
Given today’s environment, no matter where you are in the trucking supply chain, you have to be innovative, and you have to have operating processes and practices that make it easy for people to do business with you.
Once we find a formula for success, I think many of us get into “set it and forget it'' mode. We convince ourselves that the adage, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” is true. We can no longer afford to engage in that type of thinking given the pace of technological innovation in our industry. That does not mean that you constantly change things up just for the sake of change, or that you change things in ways that compromise your core values. While your core values need to be reviewed periodically, decisions you make about how to innovate or improve processes and procedures should align with your business’ core values.
However, you can’t just sit back and continue with business as usual, because there is nothing usual about today’s trucking industry. From high fuel prices to new safety technology for trucks, and from supply chain shortages to the rapid development of both electric and autonomous vehicles, our industry is in a state of flux.
See also: Getting creative with parts management
We have people coming into the industry with no previous experience in trucking who are seriously disrupting the status quo. Ask yourself this, before the EV startups came on the scene, when was the last time we had a new OEM enter the truck market? Today there are a host of manufacturers vying to gain a foothold in the trucking industry. It's naive to think that all of them will succeed, and it is very likely that we will see a lot of merger and acquisition activity. But regardless of how that all shakes out, these companies are coming into the trucking industry with fresh ideas, and companies that have been in the industry for many years need to step up their game in order to stay relevant to customers.
It's an exciting time to be in the trucking industry. It’s also a time for everyone to review the way they operate to bring more innovation into their operations, so they’ll be around for many more years providing top-level service to customers.
David Seewack is the founder and CEO of FinditParts. Seewack is focused on transforming how heavy-duty truck and trailer parts are bought and sold. Founded in 2010, FinditParts is the No. 1 supplier of these parts online, with more than 10 million available from more than 1,800 manufacturers and customers in over 210 countries.
