Zero Down Supply Chain Solutions' Brad McBride Details Importance of Data to Back Up Decision-Making: Pros to Know Award

Supply & Demand Chain Executive: Hello, my name is Marina Mayer, Editor-in-Chief of Food Logistics and Supply & Demand Chain Executive, and I am here with Brad McBride, CEO of Zero Down Supply Chain Solutions. Brad is a recipient of this year's Pros to Know Award in the Leaders in Excellence category. Brad, thank you so much for joining me today.

Let's talk about you. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey, and how you got to this current stage in your career.

Brad McBride: I grew up in Oklahoma, small-town Oklahoma boy, went to college and played football for Oklahoma University there in Norman, Oklahoma.

I guess it was during 4 years there, we lost 5 games over 4 years, and we had had success in other sports prior to that, but really, the success that we had, it was really an eye-opening experience from team atmosphere. Learned what it takes to build a winning team, and to play on a winning team. I found that winning is contagious very quickly, you know, it's a lot of fun when you win, right?

So, I graduated school and got tired of taking on 300-pound guys every day, so I decided I'd get into the freight industry. Instead working on the docks with the Teamsters, I worked for CF Motor Freight, Consolidated Freightways, God rest their souls, no longer with us today. So, as we all know, the industry's really changed over the past 38 years that I've been in it.

I left Consolidated Freightways, then I went to work for Eagle Global Logistics in the freight forwarding industry back in 1993. I started with that company, and it was about $10 million in revenue, and whenever I left 10 years later, to start Zero Down in 2003, that company had grown to over $2 billion, and so, it was another exciting time in my life that I was a part of a winning team, and we really had a lot of fun, and learned a lot, and made a lot of good relationships, and really still have a lot of those relationships today.

I've learned over the years that teamwork does it. So I founded Zero Down in 2003, running sales for Latin America, and all the bids came across my desk, and they were just very high level. And I knew there was a disconnect. Either people didn't know their data, they didn't have access to it, they didn't have the resources or the knowledge, and there was just a disconnect. And that's how we started Zero Down Supply Chain Solutions, to bring visibility and to bring big management services, and then just to bring automation to the supply chain.

30 years later, the problem of having no visibility, it's evolved over the years, but it still hasn't gone away, and that's really amazing to me. Maybe 9 out of 10 companies today still don't have real-time visibility, or the visibility that they need across all different modes that can give them the recipe for success, right? If you don't see your data, it's hard to manage it.

Supply & Demand Chain Executive: One of the things outlined in your submission is how you like to focus on the bigger picture, where the company is going, how the product should evolve, what clients actually need from their supply chain partners. Why is this outlook so important in today's supply chain landscape?

Brad McBride: Well, it's most important today because of change. I mean, change is a constant, as we all know, but I've never seen the amount of change over the past year that I've ever seen over my entire career. It's just, AI is making a big difference out there, right? It's easy to get buried in the day-to-day happenings, but, leadership, in my opinion, must be focused on the big picture of what's coming and the possible impact to them. I mean, tariffs came out of nowhere, right? And they're shifting overnight. Sourcing needs may need to change. You need to go from China to India or to Mexico. I mean, lots of things happening out there that if you're not looking at, take your eyes off the road and look to see what else is coming at you, then you're really at a disadvantage. I think AI is the biggest inflection point in my career, and I see it making big strides in bringing that actionable data to everyone's fingertips.

Companies are the individuals that are not embracing AI, and talking about it, and implementing it, and having use trials. They're missing it. Those are the ones that are going to be left behind, and in my opinion, will go out of business. And it's not just about the companies, it's about the people as well.

If you don't have an open mind and realize that change is coming and that you have to change, then you're going to get left over. You're going to get ran over and hopefully not go out of business, but I think you really have to look at the big picture to see what's coming and to make adjustments.

Supply & Demand Chain Executive: What also outlined in your nomination form is how you still think like a carrier. Why should all CEOs think like a carrier?

Brad McBride: I think it's always good to put yourself in the other person's shoes to understand the dynamics that they're going through. And, to me, it's all about collaboration. It's not, in these negotiations and of carrier relationships. I think people look at it as an us vs. them, and in my opinion, they need to look at it from a more collaborative lens, where trying to understand the carrier's nuances of what they're faced with internally, creating a transparent relationship with your carrier partners. I mean, they're running a business, and they're running to make money as well, and I think if you have open conversation with them and look at different ways that can benefit both of you, the collaboration is really important there to understand what impacts their operating ratios, and how that you can potentially, just by maybe making a few internal changes, can help benefit them and help reduce their costs to allow them to give you better pricing.

I think the other thing, it wasn't long ago that everybody negotiated, if they negotiated frequently with parcel, it was once per year, and that was very frequent.

Last year, I think the parcel carriers, I think they had over 10 rate increases in one year. And, if you're not aware of that, if you don't see that in the marketplace, if you still maintain the same structure of negotiating once per year in place, I'm gonna tell you, your profits are gonna erode. They're gonna eat your profits away because having multiple increases, and without mitigating those increases, and changing the mindset, having that paradigm shift, we've always done it once per year.

But this is what's happening in the industry, which creates our need to do it multiple times per year. Literally, just every time there's a rate increase to try and mitigate those increases so it doesn't chip away at your profit. You gotta change your mindset. It's a different day, and you have to handle things differently as well.

Supply & Demand Chain Executive: Your focus for the coming year is to make FreightOptics accessible to mid-market shippers who have been priced out of enterprise-level visibility tools. What is FreightOptics, and why make it accessible to mid-market shippers?

Brad McBride: I've spent 20-some-odd years now-plus watching mid-market and smaller companies get left behind. They don't have the budget, they don't have the monies to go out and buy the big shiny objects of the technology, right? The big enterprise accounts have had more access to visibility tools and dedicated teams and consulting relationships for many years. So, the small to mid-sized shippers are often running on spreadsheets and approving invoices on trust, and that's not the way to go in today's market, right? You really have to just have that paradigm shift and act like a big company, but there's so many solutions in the marketplace today that don't break the bank, that can bring visibility to your data without costing you an arm and a leg.

That's why we built FreightOptics because from Day 1, it's been lack of visibility, so FreightOptics gives you that one login access to see all modes of transportation. I mean, every mode, every carrier, every invoice, and you don't have to pay a boatload of money to get it.

Supply & Demand Chain Executive: The Leaders in Excellence category honors company leaders who've made outstanding contributions to the supply chain space. What advice do you have for other professionals in supply chain?

Brad McBride: I think, get your data in order, know your data, know your carriers. Be comfortable with your data. Again, if you can't see it, you can't manage it.

And for years, it's still the most common problem that I see. Companies are making multi-million-dollar decisions about carriers and lanes and modes, and a lot of times doing it without the data to back up the decision that they're taking.

I think, learn how the other side thinks, whether you're a shipper or a carrier, understanding how the other party prices and makes decisions gives you a massive advantage. Most shippers negotiate rates without any insight into carrier cost structures. That's why, in my opinion, third-party negotiators, there's a lot of consultants in the marketplace, they're professionals. They do it every day. They know the market. It's kind of the analogy of going to play a tennis game. You're going to play against an opponent that practices every day for the past year, as an example, and you've practiced one time. It's not hard to know who's going to win that match. It's not even close. So, I think you have to invest the time and the effort and the knowledge to learn how the other side thinks, thinks.

Take AI seriously. I see companies that are adopting AI-driven freight audit and spend intelligence right now. I personally think they're going to have a structural cost advantage over everyone else within just a few years, if not sooner. If you're not really looking at different alternatives to automate different areas, including freight audit and pay, there's other ways that AI can help your operations and improve efficiency, improve visibility, and automation.

And probably last but not least, stop going to bid every 2-3 years. The market's changed, and if you don't change with it, the market moves too fast for 2-3 years unless your volume is just very static, but I would say annual negotiations, at a minimum, would be a best practice to implement.

Supply & Demand Chain Executive: What is something that we haven't addressed yet that is important to kind of share with our audience?

Brad McBride: Zero Down does well over a billion dollars in verified client savings over our tenure, the past 23 years. We're SOC 2, Type 2, and GDPR compliant. We take security very seriously. And, the future of freight audit is predictive, not reactive. The shift from, here's what you overpaid last month, to here's what's about to cost you more than it should, is really where the industry is going in all different areas, and we're building that now within FreightOptics.

One last thing that, a little bit of exciting news that we have coming out soon is a new technology, called 3PL Audit. Our services create budgets for people, and, I encourage you, if you've never worked with a consulting firm or a third-party negotiator, you might just take the time to meet with some of them, because they bring value to your bottom line, and I'm going to tell you, they're going to keep profits in your pocket.