Trust is one of those intangible things often defined by its absence. In business, the lack of trust seems to actually turn up the force of gravity under a project. Work slows down or drags to a halt altogether. People drift away. Costs mysteriously climb. When trust is high, on the other hand, work just hums along. You know the feeling, right?
In his book The Speed of Trust, writer Stephen M.R. Covey (son of author Dr. Stephen R. Covey of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People fame) notes, “When trust goes up, speed will also go up and cost will go down.” Covey considers trust to be the bedrock of collaboration and so, it turns out, does Stuart Sutton, president and CEO of Sylectus, a business unit of Omnitracs Canada Inc., a provider of web-based transportation management software. Like many other SaaS fleet management solution providers, Sylectus gives customers the opportunity to subscribe to different levels of service from simple load posting and finding to more comprehensive and integrated tools.
However, here is where things get really interesting: Sylectus also gives its customers the power to selectively connect with hundreds of other member companies for the purpose of sharing the use of available trucks, including with their direct competitors. What is even more amazing is that this collaboration is working. According to Sutton, “trust is the invisible glue” that holds it all together and makes it work—along with the technology that enables it, of course.
Participating fleets that need access to another truck or a different type of truck to meet one of their own customer’s needs can post their load or look on the network for empty trucks in the area. The “borrowed” truck shows up on the user’s system just like one of its own vehicles until the job is finished.
“We are still competitors, but we can see one another’s trucks and use them,” says Chuck King, COO at Bolt Holdings, parent company of Bolt Express and a participant in the Sylectus Alliance Network. “What it really means is that you have a bigger fleet.” It also provides the opportunity to diversify and add value.
“It is seamless for our customers really,” notes Michael E. Winslett, president, CEO and founder of DTH Expeditors. “We don’t do business with everybody on the network. We can set our own lists of preferred carrier partners.”
“I’ve actually had customers ask, ‘Aren’t you a part of that Sylectus network?’” says Spencer Squier, president of All State Express. “These are partners in the system. [With the network,] you can just say ‘yes’ to jobs more often.”
Sutton (who I like to call the Chief of Trust) has learned from experience that having some ground rules and protections help to give trust the environment it needs to work its magic. He has four basic commandments for network participants: 1. Don’t back-sell one another; 2. Don’t take one another’s customers; 3. Don’t steal drivers; and 4. Pay your carrier partners promptly.
The system tends to be “very self-policing,” Sutton observes, but he has also built an issue resolution procedure into the network and the rare individuals who become chronic problems are simply “unfriended” by other members. They can continue to use the Sylectus fleet management software, but all visibility of the network is blocked. “That is our first line of defense,” he notes.
There is something about this combination of new technology and old-fashioned, carefully considered trust that is as welcome as a warm handshake from someone you know and like. It adds a little buoyancy and bounce back to business—as though gravity was turned down just a notch.
Wendy Leavitt is Fleet Owner’ s director of editorial development. She can be reached at [email protected].
