Transportation management (TMS) and digital freight marketplaces

Moving the trucks, and finding a truck for a load

A factory in Chennai has a load of floor tiles to send to a shop in Hyderabad, and it needs a truck with space today. The goods have left the warehouse. (More on the warehouse in Market Segment 30.2, Warehouse management systems (WMS) and warehouse robotics.) Now they go by road, like most goods.

A few words the freight industry uses:

A shipper is the company whose goods are being moved, like the tile factory.
A carrier is the company that owns the trucks and moves the goods.
A broker is a middleman who finds a truck for a load, and earns a margin on the deal.

Two kinds of software move the trucks:

Transport management

plans the loads, the routes and the schedules for a shipper's or a carrier's fleet.

Freight marketplaces

match a load with a truck that has space.

The shipper owns the goods, the carrier owns the trucks, and a broker finds a truck for a load and earns a margin. Transport management plans the loads, routes and schedules of a fleet; a freight marketplace matches a load with a truck that has space.

In America, both are large industries, and much of their software is built in Chennai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad. In India, most trucks belong to owners with one or two trucks each. So in India, the marketplace is the bigger change.

Every company named here has posted software engineering jobs in India. Famous companies that don't actively hire software engineers in India are left out.

This Market Segment has two sub-segments. The first covers planning and running the fleet. The second covers finding a truck.

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Planning and running the fleet
Finding a truck

Planning and running the fleet

Transport management and route planning, managing the yard, the truck's operating system and its telematics, and checking freight bills

A large shipper sends loads like the tiles every day. It needs software to plan every truck, and to watch it on the road.

Kaleris

with engineers in Chennai and Bengaluru, has the most job postings in this Market Segment. It sells yard management. The yard is the area outside a distribution centre where trailers wait, and the docks are the doors where trucks load and unload. Kaleris also sells transport management and visibility, which means knowing where each shipment is. (More on visibility in Market Segment 30.4, Shipment tracking and supply chain visibility platforms.)

Platform Science

with engineers in Chennai, sells the operating system on the tablet in a truck's cab. Fleets run their own apps on it.

Locus

founded in Bengaluru, with engineers there, uses AI to plan the routes and the dispatch of delivery fleets around the world.

Turvo

with engineers in Hyderabad, and Optym, with engineers in Bengaluru, sell transport management to shippers, brokers and carriers.

Samsara

with engineers in Bengaluru, sells the fleet's telematics, cameras and diagnostics. Telematics are devices in the truck that send its location, speed and engine data back to the office.

EshipJet.ai

with engineers in Hyderabad, sells multi-carrier shipping to shippers: one tool to book and ship through many carriers.

Lighthouz AI

with engineers in Delhi, audits freight bills, checking that each bill is correct.

Platform Science and Samsara also appear in Market Segment 38.4, Fleet management and telematics (in Industry Vertical 38, Automotive and mobility).

One company here is covered mainly in that Market Segment:

Motive

with engineers in Bengaluru, sells fleet cameras and telematics. It is covered mainly in Market Segment 38.4, Fleet management and telematics.

Finding a truck

Online freight marketplaces and brokers, load boards, buying freight transport, and goods transport on demand

Back to the tiles in Chennai from the start of this Market Segment. For years, finding a truck meant phone calls between the factory, brokers and truck owners. These companies replace the calls with an app or a website.

In America:

Uber Freight

with engineers in Hyderabad, matches shippers' loads with carriers in America. It also runs transport management for large shippers.

DAT Freight & Analytics

with engineers in Bengaluru, runs America's largest load board, an online list of loads waiting for trucks. It also sells the data on freight rates behind it.

RXO Inc.

with engineers in Mumbai, is a large American freight broker with its own platform.

Hwy Haul

with engineers in Bengaluru, runs an online freight marketplace.

In India:

Porter

with engineers in Bengaluru, sends a mini-truck or a van from an app, for moving goods within a city. Think of moving your things to a new flat across town.

Zinka Logistics Solutions

runs BlackBuck, the app on which India's truck owners find loads, pay tolls and manage their trucks. This is the app on which a truck owner would find the tiles.

SuperProcure

with engineers in Kolkata, runs freight procurement for Indian shippers: the process by which they invite carriers to bid, and choose who moves their goods.

Finding a truck: before, the factory phoned a broker who phoned truck owners; now the load is posted on an app such as BlackBuck, where India's many small truck owners find it directly.

The load matched by a model.

Freight brokerage has been a business of phone calls between brokers and truck owners. The marketplaces now match loads using AI models, and price them from data. More and more, they also negotiate using voice agents: AI software that talks on the phone. In India, where most trucks belong to small owners, the app on the owner's phone is the change.

That is moving the trucks: software that plans every load and route, and marketplaces that find the truck with space. Next, the question is where the shipment is right now. (More on it in Market Segment 30.4, Shipment tracking and supply chain visibility platforms.)

Who they hire

Who these companies hire, and for what, is on What supply chain and logistics companies hire for.

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