Hattiesburg, MS // Jones Logistics has announced they have built a custom integration to their existing toolstack which fully automates their carrier sales process. Now a ‘digital brokerage’, Jones can execute loads without any manual touches from their carrier sales team thanks to a custom configuration they developed using their logistics automation platform (Parade) and their TMS. Of the new capability, Alex Maurer, Director of Operations for Jones Logistics said “if a driver or carrier can book the load themselves then our reps can spend more time talking to the customer, allowing us to focus our energies on meeting all of their needs and challenges.”
The journey to ‘digital brokerage’ began when Jones first used Parade to better understand and utilize their in-network capacity. When Parade first offered instantaneous digital booking capabilities (‘Book Now’) in March of 2019, Jones began to conceptualize what is now their custom end-to-end digital booking experience. “We saw that we could automate almost all of the booking process with Parade’s ‘Book Now’, but we would still require one of our representatives to manually generate and send a rate confirmation to that carrier - we knew we could take the automation one step further” said Tim Blackwell, VP of Technology for Jones Logistics.
Now, Jones’ in-network carriers can autonomously book loads at their convenience and instantly receive a rate confirmation from Jones. Carriers can find matched loads and submit quotes or ‘Book Now’ through Jones’ Partner Page with Parade, then the load is automatically assigned into Jones’ TMS via Parade, and finally carriers automatically receive rate confirmations through Jones’ custom workflow powered by Parade’s secure automation. Blackwell said “after acknowledging the limitations of our TMS and exploring options, we eventually figured out that we already own a product that allows us to schedule workflow tasks and that could handle our rate confirmations, we just needed to modify it a little. It became a matter of identifying the key pieces of data, asking the right questions within the SQL server, and then connecting it all to the email server to send out.” Anthony Sutardja, CEO of Parade, said “We’re excited to be a partner with Jones and to have worked with them to achieve their business goals. Jones saw the opportunity to improve using our AI-powered workflow automation tools and we couldn’t be happier to be a part of their digital transformation.”
Sustainability is a core value for Jones; they sought technology options that would allow them to efficiently understand their carriers and engage with these carriers in innovative ways at scale. As the 3rd largest open deck broker in the U.S., Jones handles large project freight. Maurer said their group has had difficulty in the past finding technologies that fit their unique business model: “we’ll have 300 loads get booked and then cancelled or diverted immediately. We talked to lots of other tech providers who would try to assign the van model to Jones Logistics and it just wasn’t going to work.” Maurer and Blackwell agreed that both fit and innovation are critical when choosing any vendor. “You have to find somebody who is innovative, who’s willing to stick with you and work with you through the process. We don’t house our own TMS, we didn’t build our TMS, so we have to work within what the TMS provides. The fact that we work with vendors who are creative and innovative allows us to be successful” said Maurer. Blackwell added “fit is as important as innovation, other vendors tried to make us fit their model. Working with Parade has been easy.”
Parade is known for its ability to manage carrier intelligence and engagement, including offering targeted loads to brokers’ preferred carriers and click to ‘Book Now’ capabilities on Partner Pages. “What has been really important to us from the start has been to give our customers complete control over the entire automation process. Essential to Parade is keeping workflows inside of our customers’ businesses so they can make the best decisions and modify as needed” said Sutardja.
About Jones Logistics:
Jones Logistics, a portfolio company of Jones Capital, was originally established in 1999 under the moniker Jones Brothers Trucking and was created to meet the transport needs of its sister company, Jones Lumber. Since its inception, Jones Logistics has continued to diversify by serving a variety of customers and hauling more than 150,000 total loads per year. To learn more about Jones Logistics, visit JonesLogistics.com.
Contact: Amber Ross | Amber.Ross@jones.com
About Parade:
Parade, the leading freight workflow platform, empowers modern transportation companies to efficiently manage relationships, analyze capacity, and automate load bookings on a unified, private platform. Leveraging Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing, Parade has re-imagined outdated workflows to design the future of working in freight as part of Industry 4.0. Features of the Parade suite include intelligent profiles, automated engagement, real-time freight matching, digital load booking, and business intelligence. For more information about Parade, visit Parade.ai.
Contact: Nathalie Freysinger | marketing@parade.ai | 415.965.6237