Welcome to the team, Ian Byrd!
The Magnus team is expanding and welcomes a new member to its senior leadership team, Ian Byrd, VP of Sales and Business Development. Byrd will lead the growing sales team at Magnus. He brings with him over two decades of sales experience, with 10 years in the transportation industry.
We caught up with Ian to chat about the trends and insights in trucking logistics and why he believes Magnus is poised to transform the industry.
What’s happening in trucking logistics today that has you the most excited?
Trucking companies are looking to update their technology from clunky, old client-server systems to a TMS that will help them solve their day-to-day problems. These companies are using legacy TMS systems and they are at a point where they have tried to patch them together to make it work for too long. What they are asking for is a cloud-based platform that will move and grow with businesses and doesn’t require hardware or a lot of money and time to get up and running.
What TMS and/or logistics trends do you see coming in 2021?
Due to the pandemic, supply chains are demanding more transparency and speed. This isn’t going anywhere and will only intensify. This is going to push asset-based carriers to update their logistics systems to a cloud-based, nimble TMS.
Also, due to a truck driver shortage as well as new interest in trucking, there is a younger generation of truckers coming up and they are digital natives. They aren’t going to put up with or know how to use older systems. But they do know how easy it is to use apps and connected devices for other parts of their lives and they will expect it for their job too. Companies will need to update their systems to attract and keep these drivers.
What does it take to be successful in the trucking logistics industry?
It takes a lot of hard work and having a deep understanding of the trucking business as a whole. There are so many hard-working Americans in this business, that bring everything into American’s homes so that we can live. It is important to support them by providing them with a better way to do business that makes their lives, as well as their work, easier and more seamless. So to be able to understand every aspect of a business and all of its moving parts, from start to finish, is essential.
How will Magnus meet the needs of the market right now?
There is a need in the market for what Magnus does and our platform can help supply chains across the country with best-in-class technology. Having been in the industry for as long as I have, I have developed a keen sense of what the trucking market needs. The ELD push was the first big wave of tech companies looking to cater to the industry, and I believe that TMS is the next big wave of modernization.
This is the market to disrupt right now and Magnus has the best platform and people to do that. Magnus is built on an enterprise-level platform, with a cloud-based service (not client-server), that is flexible and can serve the needs of companies from three trucks to 30,000 trucks. Plus, we are affordable for the small and medium-sized fleets, which in the past, was a huge barrier for these companies. We listen and know the market and its people. Plus our customer relationships are our number one priority.
Want to find out more about the Magnus Platform? Reach out to Ian today and he’ll fill you in on how Mangus can transform your business.