September 14, 2021
As our nation and our industry strive to place the COVID-19 Pandemic in our rearview, we find ourselves focusing efforts and resources towards a record-breaking, seemingly post-COVID peak- season while continuing to navigate constraints created or at least exposed by the global pandemic.
Thankfully, our industry stands readier today than ever to take on 2021’s spiking demands with limited resources because of the lessons in agility, resilience and resourcefulness learned in 2020. While that may be true, supply chain leaders need to take advantage of their (often newly) hard earned seats at the proverbial table by not only offering insight and requesting additional resources to get us through this coming peak season but by ensuring businesses instill the strategies that allowed many to flourish during the COVID-19 Pandemic to all facets of their supply chains for the long haul.
To explain my point, I’ll start with the most publicized issue facing our industry — shortages. Our industry is short handed across the board from drivers to technology to equipment. So, many savvy supply chain leaders are allocating company resources towards the growing visibility and routing technologies while applying lean and redundant operations to combat these shortages to compete during a bulsting 2021. These are great strides but only scratch the surface of cultivating long term solutions to the challenges that far predated 2020 (ex. driver shortages).
I get it. We can only play the cards we’re dealt and anyone can offer lofty opinions on how we all move forward better. When the rubber meets the road, though, how do we execute long term solutions when we do not have enough people or assets in the marketplace to properly service today’s demand? Well, I will not speak to the driver shortage here, but I will confidently say that continuing to place orders for new assets while manufacturers and leasing companies are projecting 6–16 month backlogs on deliveries will not work. Remember 2018? What happens when the wave of new orders does arrive and demand has cooled (even just slightly) or new drivers are not available to seat those assets? To those who have excess tractors and trailers, how long are you willing to hold your breath on a new wave of driver entrants to get those assets moving? Remember 2018? By the time drivers arrive, will there be enough freight to fill those trailers or will those trailers still be in-date with your fleet standards?
Stabilizing our equipment capacity imbalance cannot wait on the equipment or drivers to appear. This industry moves too quickly and our market is too volatile. We must alter how we approach owning and leasing assets altogether. We must turn to different suppliers or maybe even become suppliers. There is over $1 trillion of equipment available throughout the supply chain in the form of owned yet underutilized assets. These assets are held at distribution centers, carrier terminals, ports and nearly everywhere in between. Often, the owners of these assets do not even know where the asset is located or how and far more often a needy carrier or shipper has no idea an available piece of equipment sits idle just down the street.
REPOWR exposes this untapped capacity, allowing transportation companies to lease or share assets with one another. The community of carriers and shippers who supply capacity on the REPOWR network (aka POWRsuppliers) have supplemented over 600 trucks and trailers in the form of short-term leases to the industry for others to utilize this year. Many of these leases have doubled as reposition moves for the POWRsuppliers. That’s right. Through the REPOWR platform multiple parties who were previously unaware of one another are able to simultaneously generate revenue from a single (shared) asset. Maybe even cooler, the asset lands in a profitable locale for the owner, the renter is often offered a loadout at the drop facility, and the supply chain at large receives a jolt of added capacity. Now, that’s efficient and great for the environment. To put a real number on it, REPOWR “POWRsuppliers” are generating upwards of $52,000/month on these “reposition leases.”
That’s a no brainer to me!
Stop paying to move empty trailers when you can get paid for committing needed capacity to an economy that desperately needs drivers hauling freight, not air. Businesses with sitting inventory can become a REPOWR supplier with a couple clicks and generate new cash flows. Companies in need of assets may just as easily search for equipment resources in a given area. This can all be done via the REPOWR platform with true visibility into asset capacity and transparent pricing. This type of speed and reliability is a must for carriers who have to make quick / strategic business decisions, especially in times of scarcity.
So, whether you need additional equipment for short term projects or long term leases, REPOWR wants to make it easy for you and your team. If you don’t need equipment be sure to give your fleet a once over and see whether any assets could be better utilized elsewhere or as rental units. We promise there is someone looking for what you have. And, when your new equipment does arrive let the REPOWR team help provide recurring cash flows through leasing opportunities within our community and your networks before you turn to cycling out your equipment for a one-time deal.
While I do want all readers to sign up on our platform, the bigger message I want to leave with you is that your industry peers need you, the economy needs you! To get valuable goods to folks, to increase utilization rates, to keep drivers on the road, and ultimately to thrive tomorrow we have to embrace our interconnectedness. We’re starting to collaborate well around individual shipments but that’s only the beginning. Join REPOWR.io today, and let’s work together as an industry to develop innovative ways to better, more sustainably serve our supply chains
Onward,
Patrick Visintainer
Co-Founder, REPOWR
