TRUCKING’s STRATEGIC EVOLUTION
W hen Eric Sauer started at the California Trucking Association (CTA) 24 years ago, most members were traditional trucking companies. In the years since, that model has changed dramatically as more carriers expand their services beyond what they have historically provided, encompassing everything from freight forwarding to inventory management and warehousing. “Things de nitely have changed,” says Sauer, who is chief executive of cer of the CTA. Trucking companies across the country have expanded their services to meet the needs of the marketplace and to create exibility to better navigate challenging environments for their more traditional services. The recent freight recession and the dif culties that it has created for the truckload sector has shone a fresh spotlight on the potential bene ts for trucking companies to commit to different aspects of the supply chain. A NATURAL EXTENSION Trucking companies are now more broadly integrated across the entire supply chain. “Truckers have been very good at getting deeper into the supply chain and providing solutions
to shippers in a way that’s just a natural extension of what they do,” says Dean Croke, principal analyst at DAT Freight and Analytics, an Oregon-based freight data analytics service and operator of a truckload freight exchange service. “Over the past three decades, companies have shifted from simply providing services to actively seeking more control over freight and demand,” he says. “They’ve moved their focus from physical assets to solving problems directly.” Diversi cation has clearly been a bene t during the ongoing freight recession. “While the diversi cation trend doesn’t x all trucking industry problems, which are mostly about supply and demand, it does help companies cope against tough times in speci c market segments,” says Kent Williams, EVP of sales and marketing for Averitt, a Tennessee-based freight transportation and supply chain services provider. “The past three years in the truckload market perfectly illustrate this: It has been terrible and unsustainable, making it especially dif cult for eets focused solely on over-the-road truckload,” he adds. Expanded services—whether leaning into already existing services or
branching into new ones—has been a critical component of many trucking companies’ strategies in recent years. “Diversifying into new modes or industry segments over the past few years has been extremely helpful for some trucking companies during these challenging times,” Sauer says. EVOLVING WITH THE MARKETPLACE Trucking companies often expand simply to take advantage of emerging opportunities in the marketplace. For instance, as warehouses moved closer to urban populations as part of the heightened, pandemic-fueled emphasis on next-day and same-day delivery, shorter-haul trucking became much more prevalent among carriers. Croke notes a shift in freight movement, where companies are now more deeply involved in the supply chain. Large truckload carriers, in particular, have recently expanded beyond just middle-mile transportation to also handle rst-mile and, more signi cantly, nal-mile delivery to better control customer shipments. The expansion of services beyond the traditional transportation model for many carriers in recent years is a result of them being in “survival mode,” Sauer says. Some of that stems from workforce retention, and companies aiming to do what they can to keep drivers on board. “With the explosion of ecommerce and last-mile demands, many trucking companies have diversi ed or transitioned into segments of the industry that they may not have been involved with in years,” Sauer says. “That’s partly to meet the demand, but it is also for survival.” Similarly, many truckload carriers are developing more warehouse capacity. “During the pandemic, warehouse capacity was hard to nd, so many carriers found ways to build warehouse space and provide that service to their customers,” Croke says. “The advantage is, if you control the demand for your trucks through the logistics side of pick and pack and load, you control the utilization levels of your trucks.”
An Averitt truck at the Port of Savannah, where the company has expanded its services to include drayage and transload for many LTL customers in recent years.
PHOTO COURTESY OF AVERITT
32 Inbound Logistics • September 2025
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