October 25, 1999

Consolidated Trucking: Thinking About IT Every Day

By Tom Smith

Transportation Transformation:

Federal Express: A Matter Of Existence Internet Strategy Gives UPS A Broader Base Of Customers Postal Service Blends Old With New Schneider Looks For "Deep Visibility" Consolidated Trucking: Thinking About IT Every Day

ow much Internet savvy would you expect from a 70-year-old trucking company headed by a grandfather who bought his first computer two years ago? Well, very little. But in the case of Consolidated Freightways Corp. and its 61-year-old CEO, Roger Curry, that assessment would be wrong. Although he's a technology neophyte, Curry has a canny sense for how the Internet is breaking the traditional rules of business.

To understand Curry's progressive views, consider CFMovesU.com, an online household moving service that leverages the company's trucks and freight terminals. Started earlier this year, it's a low-cost Internet-selling model that promises limited top-line impact, but Curry applied some decidedly Internet Age thinking to the analysis of this business unit's prospects. Curry, in fact, likens such projects to research and development, where a clear-cut return on investment counts less than the ability to speed new products to market. "Just to have an incubator for ideas is what this is about," Curry says.

Curry runs what would usually be viewed as a low-tech business: Consolidated is a hauler of less-than-truckload-size freight. At roughly $2.2 billion in revenue, Consolidated is considered one of the Big Three, along with Roadway and Yellow Freight.

Yet Consolidated is a company that, as the digerati say, gets it. The greatest risk Consolidated faces, Curry says, is missing an Internet opportunity. That's why Curry daily bounces E-commerce ideas off Marty Larson, Consolidated's director of E-commerce and marketing technology. Curry also spends much of his time analyzing and thinking about strategic use of IT. "Other than just running the company on a day-to-day basis, I think more about IT than any of those other staff functions," he says.

Besides offering online package tracking, Consolidated gives customers private Web pages on which they can conduct electronic data interchange over the Web, file cargo claims previously filed manually, and even file credit applications.

A customer-service application lets agents track Web-site visitors and, upon determining that a transaction could take place, start an online discussion to help that customer. Among other benefits, it lets Consolidated reach customers whose spending isn't likely to justify the cost of a sales call.

Like other transportation companies, Consolidated uses the Internet to share data with customers. "The customer says the information is as valuable as the freight itself," says Curry.

A veteran of one turnaround at Emery Air Freight, formerly part of the same company as Consolidated, Curry's stewardship of Consolidated is winning high marks. "Roger saved Emery, and you have to give him all kinds of credit for that," says Doug Rockel, a transportation industry analyst at ING Barings, an investment bank. "He was given the CEO job of Consolidated Freightways to repeat that magic."

If Curry is a magician, it's clear the Internet will be part of his bag of tricks.

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