CF Exec Says `Customer Economy' Is Central to Future Corporate Growth; Larson Says Trucking Challenges Are Similar to Banking.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

NAPLES, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 12, 2001

Proactive and aggressive business strategies that address the needs of an emerging "customer economy" is central to corporate growth, especially for business-services companies, according to Marty Larson, vice president of ECommerce and Marketing Technology at Consolidated Freightways, a leading transportation carrier.

Larson says the customer economy is a significant business environment that allows service-driven companies to add value to their products while building loyalties between the company and its customers. Even more important, Larson said, is that the customer economy will affect long-term growth and future sales for many companies, regardless of their industry.

"Consolidated Freightways is thinking in terms of a customer economy that is defined by services, special products, business services, customer relations, and our ability to empower clients to manage their transportation and logistics services in near real time," Larson explained.

Speaking to senior Information Technology (IT) executives on how "Evolving IT Strategies are Taking Aim at Customers," Larson discussed strategies developed at Consolidated Freightways (CF), which are focused on CF's 155,000 core business customers.

Customized Business Tools

"Clients now expect services and tools that are customized for their specific needs," he said. "I believe this prevailing trend is common for many business-services organizations, whether the company offers trucking capabilities, such as nationwide LTL, or banking services -- such as loans, passbook accounts and portfolio management."

Larson's responsibilities include CF's Internet strategy, web deployment and centralized customer service. He said over the last three years his company's web strategy has focused on developing web-enabled eBusiness tools and applications for every-day use by CF's core customers.

"The web enables us to provide core customers a variety of tools, applications and solutions that benefit end users immediately," he explained. "These self service tools can then be extended very economically to smaller and smaller accounts, customers that even a couple years ago may have been too expensive to serve from a sales and follow up point of view."

Larson's comments were presented to senior delegates on the first day of the eBusiness Summit 2001 general session, a private gathering of executive-level managers responsible for ECommerce and Internet strategies. The eBusiness Summit is sponsored by MarcusEvans, an international organization designed to create executive forums for the exchange of global business and intelligence strategies.

Trucking, Banking Business Models Are Similar

Although he was billed as the transportation expert, Larson told the delegation that in many respects Consolidated Freightways, a top-tier trucking company, is no different than a top-tier bank. Just as CF now offers a complete menu of sophisticated eBusiness tools to its smallest customers, a bank offers a full range of online services to customers who may have as little as $100 in a passbook account.

"Web-enabled business tools and related technologies are opening doors to individuals and small businesses that have been overlooked in the larger economic scheme," Larson asserted. "But the business climate and the ability to target marketing resources is driving drastic change."

Larson affirmed that activities aimed at the customer economy require an aggressive, proactive role by Information Technology executives. "IT is the enabler," he said. "The web gives us the venue, and IT is empowering customers -- large and small -- to manage their business affairs and make decisions in near real time."

IT Strategies Integrate With Marketing

IT has evolved from a backroom business application into a full-fledged corporate strategy. In fact we are at the point where business is quite literally operating in a new age, Larson said, and there is a marriage between IT and MBA strategies.

"IT is integrated with corporate growth and marketing," he explained. "Technology and business strategies are now permanently linked, and both are aimed directly at the customer economy."

Larson told the audience that knowing what customers really want and need remains an enormous challenge, and this challenge has growing impact on the overall success of the organization.

"If we offer eBusiness tools that customers don't want, don't need or can't use, we've wasted valuable time and resources," he said. "IT successes and failures will affect entire companies, and have direct impact on marketing, sales, and corporate growth."

Larson believes that companies offering business services in the broad B2B environment have particular opportunities to grow and prosper by addressing and serving the customer economy.

"So-called old economy companies are perceived to be big, bulky and established in their ways," noted Larson, pointing out that many old economy companies compete within perceived slow or no-growth arenas. "But the emergence of the Internet and related eBusiness tools has opened the eyes of top management."

IT Strategies Move Beyond Efficiencies

Larson says that boards of directors, stock analysts and market observers now can see well beyond the traditional efficiency and cost savings role of IT. "IT is now building and presenting business models that project consistent, sustainable, long-term growth, even in industries that have traditionally been slow to grow."

At Consolidated Freightways, IT initiatives tie long-term corporate growth with eBusiness tools and applications.

"We are creating a glass pipeline that gives customers full visibility of their freight. But more significant is the fact that clients large and small will actually control, manage and adjust freight movements as it moves within our system," said Larson, referring to CF's vast network of 300 terminals throughout North America.

Larson sees parallels between his trucking company's glass pipeline and the menu of financial services offered by a large bank. He said banks today offer online business tools that allow customers to move funds among various accounts, pay bills, and handle numerous transactions all while the customer's cash resources are managed within the bank.

Likewise, a trucking company's customers who have access to technology can manage freight and inventories, change routing and combine shipments all while freight is in motion.

"These business processes add enormous value to working with us," concluded Larson. "The more value we add to our services the better our product, and the more we can reach out to expand and grow our businesses."

Named Top 100 IT Leader

Larson this month was named one of the "Top 100 IT Leaders" by ComputerWorld, a leading high-tech trade magazine. Consolidated Freightways long has been recognized as a leader in state-of-art technology in the trucking industry. In fact CF management has urged companies to adopt a "keep technology relevant" policy that guards against over investing in technology that has little benefit to customers.

With $2.3 billion in revenues, Consolidated Freightways operates one of the largest less-than-truckload (LTL) transportation networks. The company's highly skilled 20,000 professionals specialize in long-haul freight transportation throughout the North American continent.

CF's network of more than 300 terminals serves virtually every market in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. More information about the company is available at www.cf.com. CF's corporate stock is traded on the NASDAQ exchange using the CFWY stock symbol.