“If freight stops moving, we’re screwed as a society,” Chris Jolly, aka The Freight Coach, said on an episode of his podcast that featured Drumkit founder and CEO Dhruv Gupta.
That may read like a blunt assessment, but it’s true. We depend on life-sustaining goods that are delivered to store shelves — or our doorsteps. Technology has advanced to play a critical role in the supply chain. For 3PLs, the implementation of the most advanced technology, powered by artificial intelligence, has become key to success — and getting freight where it needs to go and when it needs to get there.
“What I love about where we are as an industry, especially from a technology perspective [is that] we’re finally beginning to make strides into where the rest of the tech world is because transportation, historically, is at least a decade behind. You kind of have the Amazon effect where, essentially, you know when your driver sneezes, and then you have it down to where ‘we don’t even know where our truck is right now,’” Jolly said.
Drumkit’s industry-leading freight broker software is helping 3PLs make those great strides so they always know where every truck is, when every load is picked up, and when every piece of freight is delivered.
Automation and AI Are Driving 3PL Success
Gupta told Andrew Silver, host of The Freight Pod, that he advises 3PLs to think of AI as “another tool that empowers your team to be as good as possible, because when your team is successful, you’re successful as a business owner.”
He continued, “We think of Drumkit as autopilot for your job. That doesn’t mean you’re hands off. It means that you manage by exceptions. Set it and forget it until something goes wrong.”
He explained that at its core, Drumkit is really an integrations company, sitting in users’ email and pulling from tools such as a TMS, to automate processes with AI. Drumkit isn’t meant to replace humans. Instead, it’s designed to boost their productivity and efficiency.
“Give your team the tools, give your team the process, give your team the playbook. Make it easier for them to execute, and then instead of 10 loads, they can handle 20 loads,” Gupta said.
Drumkit also could be considered as a co-pilot, providing workflow solutions that help drive 3PLs to higher margins and increased customer retention.
Overcoming Challenges in Tech Adoption
Gupta told Silver that Drumkit’s freight broker software is modified to meet each customer’s specific needs — and make it easy to use.
“That’s part of the secret sauce for the brokerages — how they price and how they win loads,” Gupta said, explaining why freight broker software should be customizable and should not be a one-size-fits-all, off-the-shelf product. “There’s no other way for it to be useful.”
Drumkit takes the time to build customizable tools for individual 3PLs.
“We want to sort of parachute in, and you give us two days to learn and understand your process,” Gupta said. “We want to take that consultative approach.”
The result is a finely tuned product that helps 3PLs serve their customers.
“You’re going to have better relationships if you have a better, more defined process. And software is there to help you define that process,” Gupta told Silver.
Drumkit Has the Key to 3PLs’ Success
Drumkit’s tools are designed to take tedious, time-consuming, mind-numbing tasks off freight brokers’ plates. But one shouldn’t think of AI as a sort of decision-making engine.
“You don’t want AI to be making decisions. You should be making the decisions, and then everything else, you can hand off the actions to the AI. But you should be the one that’s building the relationships and you should be the one that knows what’s going on with the shipments,” Gupta said.
“I think that’s why process matters so much. How and when do you make the decision of ‘OK, now I can pass this off to the AI. I know exactly what the AI is going to do.’ We don’t really think of ourselves as an AI company either. We think of ourselves as a workflow product, where we happen to use AI to simplify some of those tasks.”
More and more 3PLs are finding that they want to use Drumkit’s customizable tools to take their businesses to the next level. Book an introductory call today to learn what Drumkit can do for your 3PL.
