In a free market, the price of any good or service eventually reaches an equilibrium. Companies discover the practices that really work and learn how to best serve their consumers. As a result, the types and quality of services available to consumers has little differentiation between competitors. 

But occasionally, a change will occur that fundamentally alters the market. The companies that are quick to recognize this change and adapt typically reap the rewards, gaining massive market share.

The trick to building a lasting business is to recognize when equilibrium changes are about to occur and capitalize on them. Chances are, if you’re a fleet’s CFO, you’re familiar with this concept. However, what you might not know, is that the trucking industry is about to enter a new equilibrium, and new winners and losers will soon emerge. 

How Industries Hit a New Equilibrium

Industries hit a new equilibrium when there is a fundamental shift in the market. More often than not, this comes from technology or process improvement. The invention of the refrigerator allowed for the long-haul transport of uncured meats. Similarly, Henry Ford’s implementation of the assembly line, a simple process improvement, helped establish an automobile empire.

Technology is the backbone of the trucking industry’s new equilibrium. The 2017 ELD mandate, as just one example, introduced new technology to fleets that fundamentally changed how operations are conducted.

Trucking’s New Equilibrium

But the equilibrium shift resulting from the ELD mandate has only just begun. Every day, ELDs, onboard cameras, training software, HR records, asset and equipment tracking, and more, are generating millions of data points for fleets across the country. Consequently, the trucking industry isn’t just living in a post ELD-mandate world. The trucking industry is living in a data collection world.

So why isn’t anyone capitalizing on all this new technology yet? ELDs don’t analyze your telematics for you. Though some ELD providers offer analysis with their devices, their software only generates insights based on data from the products they sell. Similarly, fleets that turn to CSA and MVR monitoring software for their analytics are still only able to see just that. Consequently, fleets are usually forced to look at their data in a vacuum. As a result, data collection alone isn’t producing the safety outcomes we can expect them to deliver. 

So when does the new equilibrium really start? Once fleets begin analyzing their data in a single, fully contextualized picture. When fleets can see all their data together and discover insights from it, they will be able to improve their services using their analysis and emerge as winners in the new market. 

How to Stay Competitive

The market equilibrium in trucking will be shifted by the fleets that best use the data already available to them. As a fleet, you need to invest in the technology that will define the trucking industry of the future. You need to invest in a solution that can take the firehose of data hitting your fleet every day and:

• Organize your data to reduce the inconsistencies that plaintiff’s attorney use to claim negligence

• Analyze your data to generate key insights into operational efficiency and gain a competitive advantage over the competition

• Automate processes to save time and money your data indicates you don’t need to spend

There’s only one platform that can pull in data from all your systems, analyze it with advanced technology, and automate your most time-intensive workflows.

Safety Suite is trucking’s premier driver management platform. At Idelic, we use proprietary AI technology to organize and analyze all your data in a single platform, letting you identify insights obscured by the firehose of data hitting your fleet every day. Safety Suite also has the most third-party integrations in the industry, so you can skip a lengthy onboarding process, understand your fleet in its full context, and start implementing best practices that will make you a winner in the new era of trucking.

Watch a 2-minute to see how you can simplify your safety here.

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