Transportation Insight Finds Niche in Industry Undergoing Change

(MT Newswires) -- Transportation Insight does not own any of the trucks, ships, or containers its clients use. With a staff of just under 2,000 employees, it has found a niche as an adviser to companies seeking to efficiently move products or equipment from one place to another, as well as a broker between companies and the vast, fragmented constellation of packing, freight, and delivery services offering piecemeal products.

"We have this ecosystem of providers that we partner with," Jared Wilson, executive vice president of managed services at Transportation Insight, told MT Newswires. "We can bring that expertise and scale within a managed solution to the overall client base."

Transportation Insight is a holding company made up of two brands, a freight broker called Nolan Transportation Group, and Transportation Insight, which offers consulting services to clients looking to maximize the quality and minimize the price of shipping at a time when supply chain crunches and container shortages have added to overall expenses of moving items. While many potential competitors focus on one area, such as truck brokerage or parcel-related solutions, Transportation Insight offers a one-stop shop.

"What makes us unique is that we have a core competency in each of those areas," Wilson said. "So our ability to go to the market with a multimodal solution, which covers anything from entry port into the US, all the way to the door of the consumer, from a parcel standpoint, is not something that's really well-matched out in the market."

The North Carolina-based company is majority-owned by Gryphon Investors, a private equity firm based in San Francisco. Transportation Insight generated annual revenue of $6.4 billion in 2022, Wilson said.

Technology has made Transportation Insight's business model possible, but it also makes it a challenge to keep up with innovations. Autonomous trucking and AI products can potentially reduce costs, and they are both areas that Transportation Insight is exploring. Many of the company's future offerings in 2024 and beyond will be built around new data analytics models to reduce costs and increase efficiency, Wilson said.

"The most immediate area where we see impact is from a capacity-matching and freight pricing standpoint," said Wilson. "We've utilized our own AI models to support anything from real-time pricing, real-time capacity, and freight matching, to provide proactive shipment recommendations, depending on the characteristics of the freight profile, and [we're] able to do that in a much more real-time way."

Wilson says Transportation Insight is "well-capitalized for growth" through acquisitions. The company acquired parcel management platforms Spend Management Experts and Platinum Circle Group in 2021 for undisclosed terms.

It is also drawing new business from clients who had never before outsourced their freight needs.

"It's not even necessarily that we're gaining business from a competitor," Wilson said. "In those scenarios, a potential client may be insourcing those activities today, around procurement or execution or freight. We're able to go in, provide them with our expertise and scale, and this whole ecosystem of providers that we have, and provide them significant savings and reduced complexity so they can focus on their core business."

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