Executive Spotlight: Wade Anderson, Bay & Bay Transportation
[Find the latest in trucking technology: Explore this quarter's issue of iTECH]
Wade Anderson recently completed his fifth year as the chief information officer and chief technology officer at Bay & Bay Transportation, a hybrid refrigerated trucking and multimodal logistics company headquartered in Eagan, Minn.
He has more than 30 years of experience digitally transforming companies for better business success. After beginning his career in diverse technical roles, Anderson quickly transitioned into managerial positions across a variety of industries, including manufacturing, retail, systems integration, high tech, insurance, government and now transportation.
Describe some of the most effective ways your company is using technology to improve its operations and address its unique challenges.
Bay & Bay has ramped up its investment in technology over the past five years, and we are starting to see great results! For our trucking business, our team deployed a driver companion app, added terminals with technology usage to drivers and made many enhancements to our core transportation management system. We have been able to successfully drive many efficiencies for both drivers and operations.
Anderson
Bay & Bay’s multimodal logistics division has benefited from many new tools to our core custom TMS that helps with pricing, load/freight matching and workflow.
What are some of the top day-to-day issues and concerns you encounter in your role, and how are you dealing with them?
Among other things, I am responsible for balancing technical issues, concerns and needs of the business. A large issue Bay & Bay has navigated recently was handling business growth and the added users needed to fit the new operational needs. We experienced growth during the pandemic when equipment was hard to come by. I dedicate a lot of time to improving the three-legged stool of systems — reliability, performance and security. These are factored into every technology decision we make.
Q3 iTECH
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►Q and A: Bay & Bay's Wade Anderson
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Explore the Issue!
What emerging technologies are you watching most closely, and which do you believe hold the most potential to improve freight transportation?
Part of my role is to keep an eye on emerging and disruptive technologies, which is one of the most exciting “hats” I wear. There are so many newer technologies that we have already started to leverage, such as robotic process automation, AI-enabled truck technology and search engines and digital freight matching.
The newest technology I am most excited about is generative AI, which is very promising and has the potential to change how we do just about everything.
What steps has your company taken to protect itself from cybersecurity threats?
Cybersecurity is always top of mind for both me and the company. We have made so many investments in process and technology, including a full set of information security policies with yearly training, best-of-breed tools for endpoint detection and response and extended detection and response, multifactor authentication, periodic penetration testing, incident response with tabletop exercises and so much more. We also added staff to help stay in front of the bad actors that are out there and want to harm us.
Look ahead 10 years. How do you envision the advance of technology changing the trucking industry during the next decade?
Improved tracking for shippers from both carriers and brokers is inevitable in the future. We continuously push for increased tracking rate, and future technology will make this process even more simple and automated.
A complicated but more exciting advancement will be autonomous trucks. Although I believe it will be at the tail end of the next 10 years, this will also help our industry, and our country.
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