Specialist
Former VP at Becker Logistics LLC
Agenda
- Key industry trends and coronavirus impacts
- Pricing outlook and recovery projection
- Opportunities, and hurdles to overcome – end market impacts
- H2 2020 outlook
Questions
1.
What are your thoughts on the operating environment as it relates to transportation and logistics in North America today, given the conditions created by the coronavirus pandemic?
2.
What were some of your expectations around the North American freight market heading into 2020, and how has that changed? The sentiment among the investor bases largely seemed to indicate some shake-out of independent owner-operators in H2, simply due to market overcapacity. Do those expectations still stand – has there been any sort of shake-out?
3.
Some industries had a hard drop in volume from the initial impacts of sheltering in place, social distancing, etc, while other industries had a notable and dramatic spike in volume. The major players will do their best to follow the demand and get fleets in the right place and used by the right industry. How nimble are trucking firms to shift capacity from one industry to another and were some more successful at that?
4.
How do freight brokerages generally fare in a fluctuating environment like a pandemic? What would be a key strategic concern?
5.
Do you have any thoughts about the margin impacts from the whole volatility we’re discussing? Generally speaking, CH Robinson suggests that freight net revenue margins could come down. What is your mid-term margin outlook?
6.
There has been a little nimbleness by way of freight brokers furloughing employees to deal with some of the volatility. Do you think brokers can get leaner and more efficient if margins come down in general? How might they protect margins? For example, could some furloughs become permanent?
7.
Would you say the largest players in the industry are the most nimble and typically adopt new strategies or do the newcomers usually disrupt things and shake things up?
8.
It would appear that nobody in freight brokerage is fearful of true disruption from Uber Freight any more. Was its impact largely driving down pricing and what market position do you think it will now take? Is Convoy an acquisition target at this point? How do you think these players might settle into the market?
9.
It seems like Convoy is an incredibly well-run digital freight matcher – very strategic and thoughtful in building out the lanes that it considered most fitting, and likely to be a very attractive acquisition target to a larger player. Do you think CH Robinson or one of the largest freight brokers would be more likely to buy one of these companies vs build a solution of its own?
10.
Has there been any change in behaviour from shippers over the past couple of months of volatility? Do enterprises or large shippers in general change their behaviour when freight capacity or shipping capacity is very low?
11.
Have there been any notable market share trends recently? Any winners and losers or market share exchange across individual players? Obviously shippers are not necessarily looking for new brokerage and logistics partners, but should we interpret that as bigger players get bigger in a time like this?
12.
What are your thoughts on the AB5, California's worker classification legislation and associated impact? I think the real fear is around the AB5 regulation spreading to other states and having a more national presence. Could you expand on where we are with AB5?
13.
You mentioned little things like process improvements, etc, that could ultimately help make some of the brokers leaner. To what extent are there any inefficiencies within the brokerage world to address as margins get compressed?
14.
Was there anything that we didn’t dig deep enough into or do you have any additional insights to share?
