This post is a wish of "Happy New Year!" to friends, colleagues, twitter followers, those I follow and anybody who takes the time to read any of the many articles I have written here over the years.
To all of you, I wish the best in health, happiness, prosperity and peace in the new year. May your children hit the lottery and you become a burden to them.
Above all, if this year becomes your last, may you be remembered as an ancestor whose love, thoughts, values and character will be emulated by all those who knew you.
To the rest of you, get busy. Those attributes can also be appreciated by those you influence today. I hope to continue the journey of becoming a better man and in doing so, make better people around me.
I started this blog in 2007. At the time I felt like I had something to say based on my experience. It is now 5 years later. I'm still posting and still enjoying it, though my work and real life have limited the content in the last few months. That is something that will change in the new year.
The logistics business has changed in the last 5 years because our economic and political climates have also changed. Deteriorated is a better word. Technology, however has changed for the better. We now live in a post PC world. Tablets and smart phones are now the weapons of war. Mobility and ubiquitous connectivity are nearly reality. (that both thrills and scares me.)
The best sales companies, especially in international sales, are supply chain companies. New environment, new tactics, new thoughts. Bring it on.
Peace,
Eric
Hi Eric,
It has been a pleasure to get to know you over the last few years, may our relationship continue to grow and maybe one day we can grab a coffee. Happy New Year.
Cheers,
Nigel Lewis
Posted by: Nigel Lewis | January 06, 2013 at 05:15 PM
I for one applaud the fact that you stepped out on the waters to create this site and to keep it going with very focused and meaningful posts.
Frequency is not as important as relativity and importance.
Technology was supposed to help us become more efficient and give us more time, when the opposite has happened.
As a result of technology we are bombarded with an increasing amount of disinformation, misinformation and pablum for the mind.
You have created a medium by which those items of the greatest consequence for a logistics professional can be comfortable reading because it is important to them or their employer.
I too will try to provide a better flow of useful information on the parcel field this year. The information peddled the past three months of rate change season by folks posing as consultants and experts has been useless and a rehash of prior years and lacking in depth and origami kitty or a complete plagiarism of others ideas and just a repackaging of same.
With the USPS in trouble and the vast majority of its parcels now either coming to them from FedEx & UPS and it flying on the FedEx or UPS network we are for all intents in a duopoly market for domestic parcels.
The big stories of this year will be
1. The possible disappearance of TNT if UPS buys them or a struggle for them to survive if UPS does not buy them because they have lost momentum ever since the sale of the company was announced.
2. The USPS priority mail contract is out to bid.
If UPS wins the contract it's a game changer.
3, The lawsuit by AFMS against FedEx & UPS.
The great leveler of pricing in this duopolistic world has been the advent of consultants adding and assisting shippers on negotiating contracts with the carriers. The accusation is that UPS and FedEx are trying to shut down the use if consultants by shippers.
4. Will Amazon become a third alternative for shippers to use for ground parcels. They have the critical mass and the geographic density to become a profitable player. The marketplace needs more alternatives, may this rumor come to fruition.
5. Will thousands of people really leave FedEx this year and will it have any effect on shippers especially with their sales representative relationship.
6. Will the courts rule that FedEx intentionally overcharged shippers and will their be derrivituve lawsuits if the current case is proved over the residential surcharge.
The one constant in the parcel industry is change.
As a result its always worth watching because every single firm out there has parcel shipments of some sort.
Most shippers in my experience have so many that they usually overpay for the service they actually need.
My desire for this New Year is to provide content that allows shippers to identify opportunities for either service improvement and/or cost reduction and to do so without any agenda.
May we all have a happy and prosperous 2013.
Thank you Eric for creating Freightdawg.
Posted by: Jerry Hempstead | January 02, 2013 at 01:34 PM