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If analyst Chuck Clowdis seems unusually familiar with the ins and outs of the trucking business, there's a reason for that. He spent the first 16 years of his career on the inside.
He's stared down the Russians and Vietnamese during face-to-face market-opening negotiations. Now, Bruce Carlton faces the comparatively easy challenge of steering NITL through some rough economic seas.
As of this mid-December writing, 40,000 Teamsters working at YRC Worldwide's four trucking units were voting on wage concessions their leaders had negotiated with YRC management.
No manager anywhere in a global supply chain has much, if any, influence over the price of fuel. But that's not to say managers are left without options.
In mid-June, the CEO of the nation's largest LTL carrier said prospects for a U.S. economic recovery in 2009 were dimming, effectively scuttling the trucker's hopes for a near-term firm-up in LTL revenue and pricing.
With prices at the pump rising by the day, distribution professionals are constantly on the lookout for fresh new ways to cut transportation costs. But they might do better to look back to the past.
Energy, raw material, labor, and insurance costs are skyrocketing. Competition is cutthroat. Shippers demand more for less. And there's the ever-present specter of further government regulation. What's a less-than-truckload carrier to do?