Ken Brown is President of
Birch Logistics, of Royce City, TX, a trucking consultant
to the transportation industry, and agent for Landstar. In this
interview, Ken talks about his experience with Axon.
How did you become acquainted
with Axon Trucking Software?
“My client at the time was Big Tex Transportation and when I
went in to be their consultant for Land Star, I discovered that
they were trying to run the entire transportation department
using Excel spreadsheets. I told them at the time that that was
not going to work since they had so many trucks, and they
couldn’t keep track of their expenses. We did an in-depth study
of different software packages from different companies for
about a 90-day period, and we all decided that Axon was the best
choice out of the eight or nine companies that we interviewed.”
Why did you feel that Axon
was the best choice?
“In my opinion, it was comprehensive in the way you could track
equipment. You could also track driver pay, and you could
track truck expenses back to that specific piece of
equipment. You could create histories with Axon that the other
software packages could not do. Another key was that many of the
software packages were not very user friendly in my personal
opinion.”
What are some of the
problems, that Big Tex Transportation solved using Axon
Software?
“Axon Software allowed me to help point out the ways they were
losing money with their equipment, and how [their leasing
company] at times was double dipping in terms of billing. We
were able to
track driver pay better, and I was able to use that
information to get the drivers paid based more on an industry
standard versus this “Einstein” mathematical equation they had
going for driver pay.
It also allowed them to see what
kind of mileages their trucks were or were not traveling. We
found out there were some drivers who were padding miles. Big
Tex did not have a uniform way of tracking driver miles. We
bought
PC*Miler and Axon together, and we were able to look at the
routes that some of the drivers were taking, and how they were
padding the miles to their benefit. So a lot of it had to do
with cost, and of course that was what I was hired to do - help
them analyze their cost and try to help them find savings. Axon
helped me to do that.”
How much money were you
actually able to save using Axon Trucking Software?
“I don’t have the matrix in front of me, but I can tell you that
within the first year Axon easily saved them over $100,000.00
in terms of expenses that they just could not see or they
could not track, and they were able to affect change with the
drivers to help save that money.”
That sounds like an awful lot
of money.
“It was a lot of money. The bosses were extremely happy.”
In your opinion, would it be
a safe statement to say that Axon paid for itself?
“Oh, Axon easily paid for itself. And it has continued to pay
for itself. Even though Big Tex has released me from my trucking
consulting duties, I know from speaking to the people there that
it is continuing to pay off in benefits. And another aspect,
talking about savings, it also saved in the way they were
tracking everything inside the office and, in particular,
payroll. Payroll was a very difficult item because they didn’t
really have good ways of tracking payroll for the drivers, and
the payroll module has helped the person in the Accounts Payable
department immensely. She was spending anywhere from three to
four days each week trying to get the payroll done, and Axon
narrowed it down to about a day and a half because of the
ability to be able to track all that information.”
One of the biggest problems
in the industry right now is driver retention. Was Axon able to
help that situation for Big Tex?
“Yeah, going back to my previous comment, because of the way Big
Tex was paying their drivers, Axon allowed me to show them how
the drivers could be paid more efficiently. The pay would be
commensurate with what everyone else was receiving in the
industry and the drivers would be happier drivers because they
were being paid what everybody else was being paid in the
industry, and yet it wasn’t going to cost the company any more
money; it was just a perception thing, and Axon helped a great
deal with that. When you have happy drivers, of course, you have
retention, and a lot of the drivers were very thankful we made
the changes because it was difficult for them to make any money
the old-fashioned way, the way they had originally been setting
things up with that pay matrix. Axon was very crucial in helping
us get that accomplished.”
How did you find the support
that the company receives from Axon?
“I think you’re very supportive. You always answered all of our
questions - if we had one, there was always someone available to
talk to us about it. And if we needed something new, maybe there
was a report that we needed, maybe there was some additional
information we needed, well, then you guys were always available
to help us either get that accomplished or let us know that
that’s going to come out in the next upgrade.”
Can you compare that level of
support to any other vendors that you’re familiar with?
“I had had a previous relationship with one of the other vendors
in the transportation software business. And, even though I
thought at that time they had what I consider good support, you
guys, I thought, were a lot better. I mean, you just were always
there when you were needed, and you got us answers when we
needed them.”
What are some of the biggest
issues that people in the transportation business today are
faced with on a day-to-day basis?
“We have mentioned one already, it’s driver retention, and the
second is that transportation has so many hidden costs and
hidden fees, things you think you have accounted for that show
up multiple days later, or maybe never even appear, and I think
the Axon Software allows you to control that. And, if you can
control your costs in transportation, you can just about control
the rest of it. If you cannot control your expenses in trucking,
you cannot stay in business. And Axon helped in that.
The other thing is, when you own
equipment, you need to be able to have communication among
staffers so that they don’t have to get out of their desk or
pick up a telephone or call someone; you know what I’m saying?
And if everyone is on the system and using it properly, there is
information that can be shared with everyone so that they are
instantaneously up to date on driver whereabouts, money spent,
com-checks that were used, miles traveled, things of that
nature. If the system is used properly, then everyone is aware
of that information and, of course, information is power. You
can use that to continue to grow your business or keep track of
your people.”
If one of your peers in the
trucking industry were to ask you about Axon, how would you
describe your experience to them?
“I would tell them that Axon is a very professional software
company, that you stand behind your product, that Axon always
performed the way it was supposed to perform, that there were
not any hidden fees; there weren’t any lies or stories told. A
lot of times when you talk to a software company, they’ll tell
you whatever you want to hear in order for you to buy their
product; I never found that to be the case with Axon. You guys
were always very forthright in what the software would do. You
expect to have truthfulness in the ability of the software, and
Axon always stood behind the product; you always had the support
when we needed it; and you were very understanding. Axon always
performed the way it should, and you were always very nice to
all the personnel, and I think that’s a key to having a good
software package.”
