Business Management Consulting for Transportation

Too busy running the trucks to run the business

Most freight company owners came up through operations. They know how to find a load, cover a lane, recover from a breakdown and keep a customer happy. What gets squeezed is the time to step back and manage the business as a business: where the margin is, where the cash is stuck, which customers are worth keeping, and whether the organization can handle the next stage of growth.

The warning signs are familiar:

• Revenue is up but profit isn't. More trucks and more loads, but the bottom line stays flat or shrinks.
• Cash is always tight. Payroll and fuel go out every week, while invoices wait on paperwork and AR aging stretches out.
• Every decision runs through the owner. Dispatch, billing, safety and maintenance all escalate to one person.
• Nobody trusts the numbers. Reports from operations and accounting disagree, so decisions get made on instinct.
• Growth feels risky. A new customer, a new terminal or an acquisition looks good on paper, but nobody is sure the operation can absorb it.

Business management consulting gives you an experienced outside view and the analysis to back it up, so you can make the big calls with confidence.

We analyze the company through its technology

Strong Tower Consulting has a different starting point than a general management consultant. In a carrier or brokerage, the business runs through its systems. Every load, rate, accessorial, mile, settlement and invoice is recorded somewhere. We go in and analyze the company through that technology, then streamline the business using our years of experience on the freight floor. You get recommendations grounded in your own data, not in generic benchmarks.

Operations review

We walk the workflow from customer order to cash in the bank: order entry, load planning, dispatch, driver communication, delivery, POD capture, billing and collections. Along the way we look at handoffs, re-keying, delays and the places where people work around the system. For asset carriers we also look at equipment utilization, deadhead and how dispatch decisions are made. For brokers we look at carrier sourcing, load coverage and margin per load.

Margin and cost analysis

Using the data already in your TMS and accounting system, we look at profitability by customer, lane, division and equipment type. We check whether rates and fuel surcharges keep pace with costs, whether detention and other accessorials are being billed, and where cost per mile is climbing. Often the biggest gains come from fixing pricing and billing leaks, not from cutting people.

Cash flow and order-to-cash

A freight company can be profitable and still run out of cash. We measure how long it takes to turn a delivered load into an invoice and an invoice into a payment, then find the bottlenecks: missing paperwork, billing holds, invoice errors, slow imaging, or collections that only start when someone has time. On the other side, we review how settlements, fuel advances and payables are managed.

Organization and roles

As a company grows, the structure that worked at twenty trucks starts to break at sixty. We help you define who owns what across dispatch, customer service, billing, payroll, safety and maintenance, document key processes so knowledge doesn't live in one head, and plan the roles you'll need as you grow.

Growth planning

Whether you're adding a new freight type, opening a terminal, starting a brokerage desk, taking on a large dedicated contract or buying another company, we help you test the plan: what it does to margins, cash, staffing and systems, and what has to be in place before day one. For acquisitions, see Carrier M&A Tech Due Diligence.

A large dedicated contract, for example, can look like steady revenue until you account for the drivers you'll need to hire, the equipment it ties up, the deadhead into and out of the customer's facility, the detention you may or may not be able to bill, and the billing and EDI requirements the customer will expect from week one. We work through those details with you before you sign, so the growth you take on is growth you can run profitably.

Questions we help leadership answer

When the answer points to deeper process or data work, our Business Process Optimization and SQL Data Mining & Analytics practices pick it up.

How a business management engagement runs

1. Conversation with ownership. We learn your history, your goals and the problems you most want solved, and agree on scope.
2. Assessment. On-site and remote work with your team, reviewing workflows, systems, reports and financial data.
3. Findings and recommendations. A written report in plain business language, with ranked recommendations, expected effort and the reasoning behind each one.
4. Action plan. Owners, sequence and checkpoints for the improvements you choose to pursue.
5. Follow-through. We help put changes in place, measure results and adjust, either as a project or through ongoing advisory such as a Fractional Freight CIO arrangement.

See How We Work for the full engagement model.

What you get

Who this is for

Owners, presidents, CFOs and operations leaders at truckload carriers, LTL operations, brokerages and 3PLs, intermodal and drayage companies, city cartage operations and private fleets, especially if you're:

• Growing but not seeing the profit follow
• Carrying most of the decisions personally and ready to build a stronger team around you
• Planning an expansion, a new service line or an acquisition
• Preparing for succession or an eventual sale
• Looking for an outside advisor who understands freight, not just spreadsheets

Strong Tower has worked with carriers since 2008. We speak the language of dispatch, settlements and AR aging, and we work alongside your leadership, not over it.

Frequently asked questions