Flexport expands Convoy Platform to connect more brokers, carriers

Related: Flexport acquires Convoy technology stack for undisclosed sum

The expansion to the Convoy Platform will use AI and other tools to create a marketplace that pools small carriers and owner-operators into a single platform. The aim is to tackle the challenges posed by market fragmentation, company officials said.

“This is a pretty notable departure from how Convoy had executed before we relaunched the Convoy Platform,” Bill Driegert, Flexport executive vice president and head of trucking, told FreightWaves. “Specifically, we architected it to be much more neutral and open to all brokers.”

Driegert said Convoy built an “exceptional stack of technology that really solves a lot of the automation and operational issues for small carriers and owner-operators.”

The Convoy Platform is an AI-powered marketplace that aggregates a large pool of carrier owner-operators into a common platform with automated end-to-end load management. It will give brokers access to capacity that is flexible and operating 24/7, and provides high tracking visibility, according to a news release.

Related: Flexport launches the Convoy Platform

Brokers can use the Convoy Platform to expand the reach of their carrier operations teams and automate manual tasks, including carrier negotiation, vetting, status updates, document management and payment.

“The opportunity we see is to open up the Convoy Platform’s technology stack for brokers and really empower them, because one of the big shifts that’s happened in the market is it’s become a lot more fragmented,” Driegert said.

The U.S. trucking market is made up of nearly 30,000 brokers and more than 750,000 carriers, with 96% operating with fewer than 10 trucks, according to the American Trucking Associations. 

“Our pivot here is that historically, we’ve tried to build a brokerage that was very focused on just leveraging that capacity within their own direct relationships. We believe there’s a lot more value to the ecosystem if we open up this pool of capacity to other brokers then expose a lot of the tooling that was built for Convoy internally to those brokers,” Driegert said.

“Convoy was able to dramatically reduce the operating expenses and the labor, and executed those loads internally, 90% or more. Today on the platform, about 92% to 93% of loads have no touch whatsoever on the Convoy Platform. That sort of operating expense efficiency is also the benefit when the loads are booked on this platform.”

San Francisco-based Flexport was founded in 2013. The company offers transportation services including ocean, air, truck and rail freight, drayage and cartage, along with warehousing, customs and compliance, financing, and insurance.

Flexport itself has dealt with layoffs and executive departures over the past year.

The Convoy Platform is leveling the playing field for carriers, according to Eric Schnirel, CEO of Great Lakes Transport.

“The Convoy Platform’s technology has transformed our operations and made us as digital as any other company in our industry,” Schnirel said in a statement.