“ Transportation intermediaries leverage their knowledge, investment in technology and people resources to help both the shipper and carrier succeed,” – Robert A. Volkmann, President & CEO of the Transportation Intermediaries Association.
A broker is a person or a company that arranges transactions between a buyer and a seller. Since a broker is an intermediary person or a middle man between a shipper ( who makes stuff/ goods) and a trucking company or a carrier (a company that transports goods). Brokers are in a great position to offer augmented services such as third party accounting software and independent contractors to attract or tempt small shippers as customers. Nowadays, technology is very useful for people to buy or sell their products. This is a big reason why brokers welcome technology as a part of their businesses in order to extend that.
C.H. Robinson set a partnership to connect its self-service brokerage tool FREIGHTQUOTE with independent contractor TaskRabbit. TaskRabbit partnership allows shippers to hire a Taskrabbit-registered contractor to pack and move shipments to an agreeable location for the carrier. Freight quote and contractor work hand-in-hand in order to deal with freight-related activities. Freightquote also allows shippers to instantly receive quotes and book truckload and less-than-truckload (LTL) capacity. Another example could be of UBER FREIGHT which has contracted with an accounting software QUICKBOOKS in order to provide easy access to QuickBooks online services, reviews, and such activities, etc. Both deals could be seen as targeting those areas of the market that have not been traditionally exploited.“We know that many small business owners today face unprecedented challenges,” Mac Pinkerton, president of C.H. Robinson. “That is why we built these new digital enhancements using our unmatched scale, information advantage, and technology.”
