Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/620616
TECH TALK BY CHIP OLSEN, OPERATIONS MANAGER AGILITY IN A DEMANDBASED MARKET T ruckstop.com is a Soware as a Service (SaaS) company. We provide a service to our customers, as a piece of Web browser-based soware. e term SaaS has become a buzzword in the past few years. At Truckstop.com, we were early to the SaaS game, and have been doing it for more than 20 years. People recognizing the value in SaaS, a soware application that they do not have to manage. Soware updates are easy and automatic. Security is easy to maintain, as it is handled by the provider. With Truckstop.com you also get access to our data and analysis tools to help you make key decisions about your business. Within the information technology (IT) group at Truckstop.com we have had to become very agile. As we try to forecast what is upcoming from a hardware and soware perspective, we can't reliably forecast beyond about six months. We build longer forecasts, but they rarely are accurate. One of the key reasons for this is we respond quickly to customer requests. For example, Scott will return from a meeting or conference and have great ideas for updates to our applications. ese will frequently trump the ongoing initiatives we are currently working on, and be completed very quickly. is kind of responsiveness to our customers is a hallmark of Truckstop.com. It also makes things dicult when trying to predict those changes. is responsiveness has also forced the IT group into a very nimble position as a provider within Truckstop.com. We have developed processes, and systems that maintain a few key characteristics. ese are: Transportation is a demand-based market. Demands change regionally, by time, and by type of shipment. To take best advantage of these trends, you need a business partner that can be as dynamic as you. Truckstop.com is that partner. We have been the leader in Web- based transportation management for years. With our SaaS solution we provide a nimble, and eective method, to meet your dynamic business needs. SCALABLE: We can add, and remove resources as they are required. RELIABLE: Redundant systems are employed to maintain reliability. REPEATABLE: We have developed processes for building and deployment that are easy to follow, and can be repeated without issue. SECURE: Once a process or system is vetted, for other attributes, we harden the systems to maintain security. We perform regular testing to ensure security is maintained. EASILY MONITORED: In order to maintain performance, reliability and security we need to be able to monitor the systems. System failures happen. They are part of the world we live in. Monitoring helps us remove troubled systems before they become issues, and manage growth. WELL MANAGED: With all systems, we need people with knowledge and time to manage the information our monitoring provides, and act when established thresholds are reached. WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH YOUR BUSINESS? "TO TAKE THE BEST ADVANTAGE OF THESE TRENDS, YOU NEED A BUSINESS PARTNER THAT CAN BE AS DYNAMIC AS YOU." Vo l . 1 0 , N o . 1 TRUCKSTOP.COM 13