Specialist
Former director at Transporeon GmbH
Agenda
- Growth drivers for TMS (transportation management system) solutions and key demand trends
- Transporeon’s product set, innovation and M&A activity
- Competitive positioning in Europe vs visibility-focused players and North America expansion potential
- Pricing models and outlook across TMS vendors
Questions
1.
How penetrated are TMS (transportation management system) solutions such as Transporeon in the market? Where are we in the adoption curve?
2.
You estimated the adoption rate is around 40-65% for large enterprises, 40-50% for medium and below 20% for small. Is that the penetration rate for cloud TMS providers such as Transporeon, or will most of that penetration be legacy on-premise solutions that may be part of ERP [enterprise resource planning] systems? What is the actual penetration of cloud TMS solutions such as Transporeon? Will that be even lower?
3.
There seems to be a good amount of green space left in the TMS industry across enterprise sizes for continued adoption. What are the key 1-3 factors driving TMS solution adoption?
4.
How would you describe the TMS solution demand environment? What key factors are influencing demand?
5.
Why is there focus on data and cost efficiency? Coronavirus has majorly impacted supply chains and transport. Is this TMS demand a short-term focus due to the pandemic or are there long-term demand trends around the need for TMS solutions driven by efficiencies?
6.
How would you segment revenue across Transporeon’s key product lines? It seems to list quite a few product lines, and clearly there has been a fair amount of M&A.
7.
I understand customers are the shippers themselves, but Transporeon has products such as premium carrier accounts. Would the majority of revenue be coming through shippers? Is there much coming through carriers? How should we assess that mix?
8.
Could you discuss Transporeon’s revenue streams, transactional subscription or services?
9.
How is the transaction fee typically formulated? Is that a flat fee for each transaction or based on a percentage of the contract value or similar?
10.
What would you say Transporeon’s customers, or shippers, care about when selecting a TMS solution? What are the key criteria? Does this evolve by shippers’ size or their specific industry vertical?
11.
It seems price is important for the mid-to-large size shippers, but it sounds as though it’s around the customisation of requirements. Is that the right way to think about it, and the options for the types of carrier they’re seeking?
12.
What customer or shipper size and industry vertical do you think Transporeon is most suited to based on its product set?
13.
What makes Transporeon better for high-volume but low-value goods rather than high-value but low-volume?
14.
Could you discuss Transporeon’s platform and key product lines? What are its greatest strengths?
15.
Why would a mid-to-large-sized shipper in Europe pick Transporeon? Is the carrier network key, or is the platform it’s building out aligning with market trends?
16.
Could you segment the competition for Transporeon and where you think the greatest threats are? My sense is the competitive landscape involves the ERP providers such as SAP and Oracle, and then point providers focusing specifically on TMS and sometimes within specific parts of the TMS platform.
17.
Do you think the ERP players, SAP and Oracle, are a significant threat anymore? Would you note any changes around their competitive positions to be a greater threat to Transporeon?
18.
How often is Transporeon competing directly against players such as Alpega, BluJay-E2open and Descartes? Where is the greatest threat coming from? Is it Alpega, based on your point around freight exchanges?
19.
Why might the visibility side be a significant threat for Transporeon and is the company doing enough to remain competitive on that side? Through M&A I believe it’s purchased real-time providers, Sixfold and Logit One.
20.
Where would a TMS platform’s greatest value come from for a mid-to-large-sized shipper? Will the visibility piece become the highest-value piece, and does that better position providers such as Project44 because they started there and are now building out and integrating other TMS portfolio parts? Or is Transporeon in a better position starting on the core TMS piece and then buying a telematics data provider such as Sixfold?
21.
Could visibility disrupt the Transporeon revenue model? Time slot management is around 30% of revenue. Does visibility disrupt that?
22.
How would real-time visibility disrupt the time management piece? Does being able to physically see where trucks or shipments are mean you don’t need the time slot management tool, or would you still need something here?
23.
Am I being too extreme thinking the real-time visibility piece might seriously erode the time slot management share of revenue, or is that what you expect?
24.
How can businesses monetise the real-time visibility piece? If a customer were to move away from time slot management but take the real-time visibility, would the revenue Transporeon can generate be the same or lower?
25.
How disruptive do you think visibility players such as Project44 and FourKites would be? These are US-based players. Could they be disruptive to Transporeon in Europe?
26.
Why are visibility players such a threat to Transporeon? What would medium-to-large-sized shippers find more attractive about Project44 than Transporeon?
27.
Do you think a shipper could take Transporeon for the best carrier or the no-touch side, but then use Project44 for time slot management? Would shippers rather take everything from one provider?
28.
What do you think Transporeon needs to do to remain or become more competitive? What would you focus on or advise?
29.
Clearly Transporeon has gone through a few acquisitions over the past couple of years. Does it not really integrate its businesses on an actual data level, with no data sharing?
30.
You mentioned the US and it sounds as though Transporeon tried in this region but wasn’t successful. Why was that and does the company need to enter North America to sustain the growth it wants?
31.
How has pricing evolved across Transporeon’s transaction fees, including the flat fees and the proportion fees for the spot market? What is your outlook for the company?
32.
Do the no-touch and best carrier revenue streams seem sustainable and you’d only highlight risks in the time slot management piece? Or do you also think there could be pricing pressure on the no-touch and the best carrier revenue lines?
33.
Is the no-touch vs best carrier a 50/50 split, if that’s roughly 30-40% of revenue, or is one likely a greater proportion of revenue?
34.
What are your key takeaways for Transporeon?
