Warkworth-based trucking operator Blake Noble knows running a successful road freight business is no easy feat.
That’s why he’s started Delivery, a new venture to provide advice and execution strategies to assist road transport operators throughout New Zealand.
The aim is to accelerate the growth and resilience of existing operations and to provide assistance to those looking to exit their business.
Noble has been immersed in the industry since 2015 when he took ownership of transport company Transcon, which had been operating for 45 years under its original owners based just north of Auckland. He also recently became a director at refrigerated freight operator Halls Group.
Noble didn’t come from a typical trucking background — he had previously spent 15 years working within a family business in the medical device industry – but he always fancied the shiny big rigs.
“I’ve always loved trucks and after spending so much time working in my family’s business, I decided to do my own thing,” he says.
He inherited a fleet of 16 trucks and quickly set to work by adding new technology, a fleet renewal and rebranding.
“It was a business that had a huge amount of local history and reputation with a solid group of customers … it had a legacy and a footprint but what it was sorely needing was a new injection of energy,” he says.
One of the key things Noble learned along the way was the importance on focusing on your strengths. In 2020, he carved off a third of the business related to container cartage as it wasn’t aligned to Transcon’s overall strategy. “We’ve refined what we are really good at and can do well,” he says.
New venture
Noble is now looking to pass on his knowledge and expertise as a smaller operator with the added advantage of his role with larger national operator Halls. He decided to start Delivery rather than embark on another “tour of duty” and go through the process of acquiring another regional transport operation. He sees it as an opportunity to help build resilience and capability across a much greater number of transport operations through an advisory offering.
The motivation behind starting Delivery was to address how lonely and isolated it can be operating in the road transport sector. “It’s an opportunity to get alongside some great transport businesses and inject some external input and assistance and play a part in taking them from good to great,” Noble says. “Being able to do so while continuing to own and operate my own provincial transport operation also means that I ‘get it’ and understand the toil most operators go through,” he adds.
Transcon now has a “phenomenal team” in place to run the key operations. This has left Noble with the ability to focus heavily on technology and automation to simplify the administration side of things that many owners find themselves “bogged down with”.
Noble says there has been a great response since Delivery was launched in October last year. “Initial demand has proven stronger than I’d imagined, with a range of fleet sizes and sectors putting up their hands to jump on-board.” The venture is looking to attract clients in the “sweet spot” – those with fleets greater than 10 trucks where “some future ambition exists”. Currently, he is dealing with clients right up to a fleet of 80 trucks.
Many operators have a lot of vision but don’t have the bandwidth or tools at their disposal to bring these ambitions to life, Noble says. This could be anything from an early-stage operator wanting to scale, a long-established operator wanting to make another big push, or an operator at the end of their tenure wanting to work towards an exit or succession.
He promises this is no “fly-by-night consulting gig” – he’s ready to get his hands dirty if necessary. That includes getting to grips with operations “from the inside-out”, whether that’s sitting behind a dispatch screen, riding shotgun in some of the fleet, or pulling on the end of a set of curtains or load-binders.
“The approach behind Delivery is to form a wide-ranging snapshot of the current state of play via a range of proven and established tools, plot a plan to take the operation forward, and then work like crazy on the execution to hit it out of the park.”
Planning and execution
There are many challenges facing road transport operators today, but Noble reckons being “time poor” is the biggest hurdle.
“We can talk about labour shortages, supply chain issues, pricing pressure, and so on … but I truly believe that at the heart of it for most is the need to get some basic planning and execution structure in place to get ahead of the day-to-day and focus on how they’d like tomorrow to look. Even if that’s only an hour a week, that’s suddenly 50 hours a year being spent on making the business a better one,” he says.
The adoption of new technology is another important ingredient for freight operators today. Noble says New Zealand is “incredibly fortunate” with how many locally-developed planning and automation tools exist for the industry. And while most operators have embarked on some of this journey, very few have extracted the full potential from their investment. “And it’s often this final 10%, joining the dots, where the magic can really happen,” he says.
In terms of tackling the driver shortage, he praises the Road to Success traineeship initiative set up by industry – a programme Transcon has had success with. “Operators can no longer expect to place ads looking for an ‘experienced operator’ if they’re not also prepared to invest in the development of new talent at the other end of the experience spectrum.”
But one interesting trend to keep a watch on in the coming years will be the number of family-owned transport companies dealing with change and succession. “For a long time to come I sense this will be a constant within our industry.
“I see two aspects that are proving challenging to many succession plans in our sector; a younger generation that have seen the hours and effort their parents have had to put in to build the business and would rather not take that path, and secondly, a reluctance to take on the level of risk/debt that’s been imperative to developing the family business.
“One of my key areas of interest and focus is trying to help incumbent owners see the range of succession options that exist.
“Too many leave it too late and are forced down the path of a relatively public sale process, which ultimately erodes some of the value within the business compared to taking a slightly longer-term and more intentional plan.”
Opportunities
According to Noble, smaller transport players still have opportunities, despite the trend towards larger national carriers among bigger customers seeking to simplify their relationships. While it may be challenging for nationwide carriers to offer highly customised services within their schedules, there will always be regional freight tasks that are better suited to smaller, locally-focused operators.
“I think there will always be regional freight tasks that will more naturally lend themselves to smaller, locally-focused carriers, and will ultimately feed into larger carrier networks; you hear a lot about final mile deliveries, but I think in New Zealand, given our geography, we’ll continue to see scope for the smaller carriers in those final 100-mile deliveries.”
Meanwhile, the pressures and costs of decarbonising the transport fleet will also take their toll on some operators. “My sense is that much of the concept proving will be getting done by larger fleets, allowing smaller fleets to watch from afar for a short period and make some more educated decisions at that point.
“I think the major hurdle may be for those operators who’ve typically relied upon used trucks, and how the lag of lower-emission vehicles reaching the second-hand market may impact their ability to play in that space.”
Despite the challenges, Noble remains optimistic. His experience running Transcon has taught him an important lesson: no matter what today brings, the sun will rise tomorrow. “I’ve had some pretty tough grinds within the course of owning Transcon, but thankfully I’ve always managed to take a lesson from each experience.”
*Go to getdelivery.nz for more information.
This article first appeared in the February edition of TransportTalk.
