Hiring trucks can be a difficult challenge for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). There are multiple aspects to it.
First, hiring a truck often is not a pleasant experience. The industry is littered with inefficiencies. On top of that, if you are an SME who is always on resource crunch and only needs trucks for 10-15 times a month for delivering products to multiple destinations, your problem can turn into a more challenging one. Since you need trucks for a limited number of times, it does not make sense to hire a dedicated person to handle the truck and logistics.
On the other hand, professional truck agents are unlikely to give you enough importance for you to have excellent hassle-free service. These challenges lead to the following situations - loss of productivity and unwanted friction in your operations.
SMEs are small organizations predominantly run by a small team. In most instances, the kind of SMEs we are talking about here are run by founders and a small team. They have limited resources. If they need a dedicated individual to manage their truck transportation it means stretching their capabilities and overseeing an activity that they can do away with.
Second, unstable pricing. Industries like truck transportation have little price stability. Often the price is dictated by demand and supply. As a result, if you don’t have a regular supplier, your cost of truck logistics can go up by any margin between days.
Third, hiring a truck from a regular truck stand or in an existing process is a hassle and most people don’t like the experience.
Fourth, if you hire a truck from a stand or an agent, often you get scant support. If anything goes wrong, getting remedy is often an uphill battle. On top of that, there is little guarantee of service quality.
Fifth, the lack of trust. To put it bluntly, truck logistics is an industry where time commitment is seldom maintained. Often what happens is, you hire a truck but it doesn't show up at the time of the trip. When that happens you just have to take another trip at a higher rate from the stand. Whereas, Truck Lagbe gives 100% assurance regarding this. Moreover, there is a lack of trust due to the inherent nature of the industry. Often when you are sending some goods, you may need to accompany the drivers to ensure the safety of your goods.
There are other challenges that SMEs grapple with when it comes to managing logistics. This is where Truck Lagbe aims to make a difference with its SME logistics solution product.
Truck Lagbe launched Business solutions in late 2019. The product has since evolved a lot. Today, a long list of diverse SMEs use Truck Lagbe Business solutions.
There are retail companies that sell products that require trucks to move such as furniture, fridge, and so on. There are small factories that produce goods and machinery that deliver products across the country. Each of these companies hires trucks differently. Some of these companies, for example, companies in Gulshan and Karwan Bazar, have easy access to trucks. But many businesses need trucks but have difficulty accessing a truck market near them.
“We realized we could make a difference in their business,” says Mr. Al-Amin, who looks after marketing at Truck Lagbe, “by simplifying logistics for them”. Today, Truck Lagbe serves hundreds of SMEs in Bangladesh. The company not only developed a product that addresses the logistics challenges of SMEs, but it has also developed a unique approach to working with SMEs.
“When an SME agrees to work with us, we assign a key account manager (KAM) who works closely with the SME,” says Mr. Mir Hossain Ekram, COO of Truck Lagbe. “The market practice is to call 4/5 different people to hire a truck. Whereas you can give just one call to the KAM and he will handle the rest. Our KAM understands your requirements to deliver top-notch service. For example, someone is transporting boards on a truck. Usually, a 7 feet truck works just fine. But to carry it, a 7 feet truck needs to keep its back dala/boot lid open. Whereas a 9 feet truck would not have to keep it open. And the shipper might want to have this option. Our KAM can help the shipper in this type of issue.”
Here are some of the benefits SMEs get from working with Truck Lagbe:
1. Best possible price: SMEs are usually not aware of fair price and they could not tell what is a good price or a bad price. Truck Lagbe offers the best price in the market to SMEs. Not only that Truck Lagbe ensures relative stability of price which is not the case in the market.
2. Hassle-free: SMEs that work with Truck Lagbe get a dedicated key account manager who takes care of everything on behalf of the SME. If you are working with Truck Lagbe and using the Business solution, you get a dedicated KAM. When you need anything you simply inform the KAM about your requirements, he would manage the rest. You don't have to worry about hiring a truck or dealing with the drivers.
The company also pays continuous attention to making lives easier for SMEs and intuitively address potential challenges SMEs face. “As we keep providing our service, we tweak it to optimize the process. For example, we prepare a drivers' pool who works with one particular client to know their requirements(pick-drop location, etc.). And they keep on supporting this client,” says Mr. Ekram.
3. Trust: Trust is an important factor in this sector. There are layers of it - the safety of your products, on-time support, and so on. Truck Lagbe has been able to develop a system and process that ensures the safety and excellent service for the SMEs.
4. 24/7 support: Truck Lagbe provides 24/7 customer service. Truck Lagbe has a dedicated customer support team that is available every day from morning till 10 pm. Apart from that, SMEs can access their KAM at any time in the day or night. It means you don’t need to worry about the service or challenges of managing your transportation. You can simply get into an agreement with the Truck Lagbe and the Truck Lagbe team will take care of everything else.
5. Wide coverage: Truck Lagbe provides coverage across Bangladesh. You can send products anywhere in the country.
6. Trained drivers: Truck Lagbe provides an orientation to truck drivers regarding manners, and other issues which means your certainty of getting a great service grows many folds.
7. AIT and VAT compliance: Truck Lagbe strictly maintains all compliance. If you need legal documents such as AIT and VAT, Truck Lagbe can provide them on request.
8. Digital challan and bill for official work: Truck Lagbe also provides digital challan and bill for official work.
9. Increase in productivity: SMEs are resource constraint organizations. It means everything that you do has trade-offs. Hence when you are managing a truck, you are not doing something else. And it costs you in terms of productivity. Contrary to that, Truck Lagbe helps companies to outsource their transportation management work completely and allow them to invest their time in growing their company.
10. Timely delivery: It is common knowledge in the transportation industry that when a driver commits that he would come at a certain time, there is no certainty. Arriving late is the norm. As a result, it sometimes causes challenges for SMEs when you have a deadline or a specific timeline to maintain. Truck Lagbe has been able to mitigate this challenge to an extent. Since Truck Lagbe works with drivers closely they can ensure much better service fulfillment reducing tension and cost for SMEs.
Truck Lagbe has established a seamless process for working with SMEs. SMEs can avail Truck Lagbe service over the mobile phone. You can simply call Truck Lagbe customer care and ask for Business Solutions. Truck Lagbe usually gets back, set a meeting and sign an agreement before starting serving the SME. SMEs can also order using the Truck Lagbe mobile app. However, Truck Lagbe prefers to work with SMEs for the long term contract and usually invites SMEs to get into long term collaboration.
Truck Lagbe has seen excellent growth in its SME solution. “An increasing number of SMEs are now using our solutions.” The company now looks to introduce more tech into the product. “We are working closely with SMEs every day, getting to know their requirements, and we are building systems to improve the solutions.”
Logistics is a necessary service for SMEs. For many, it directly affects the productivity and growth of their business. Efficient service can help many SMEs accelerate their growth as well as improve their productivity. Truck Lagbe says it aims to make a meaningful difference in the business of SMEs. “Our service ensures reduced transportation cost for SMEs. Which in turn reduces the commodity price and increases efficiency and profit for them,” says Mr. Ekram.
Everyone should work where their expertise lies. For SMEs, the expertise lies in the production of their products and for Truck Lagbe, the expertise lies in hiring trucks for the SMEs. Learn more about how Truck Business Solutions can help your business solve the logistics problem here or call at 09638000245 for any kind of service.
