In this week’s episode, we sat down with Charles Craigmile, President and Chief Executive Officer at Revenova, a TMS that’s built on Salesforce. He discusses the state of technology in logistics in the 1990s and mid-2000s, the importance of innovation, and his one-platform philosophy.
From Finance to Logistics
Charles started as a Commercial Banking Officer at Northern Trust Company, a financial services company located in Chicago. After realizing that he liked what his customers were doing more than what he himself was doing at the time, he transitioned into manufacturing and operations, eventually becoming the VP of Operations and Supply Chain for Learning Curve International, a children’s toy company.
Before settling in logistics, Charles also worked in consulting at Ernst & Young and later became the VP of Manufacturing for Orville Kent Food Company.
These roles provided him with a comprehensive understanding of the business from both the manufacturer’s and shipper’s perspectives. Charles officially entered the logistics industry in 2006 when he joined Schneider Logistics.
Evolution of Technology in Logistics
He discussed the state of technology in logistics in the 1990s and mid-2000s.
“I don’t think any broker made any money on LTL margins then, if they even provided the service. And I looked at that and I thought, ‘This can’t be the state of tech.’ Because manufacturing had advanced a lot faster using ERP, they’d made tremendous advances. And then it’s almost like people ran out of budget when they got to transportation and said, ‘Oh, well, it’s complicated. It’s the final mile. It’s the fourth man in the relay race. It’s not that interesting.’ No one went to school for logistics, you know? And so, the tech was awful.”
Driving Innovation
With over two decades of industry experience, Charles has witnessed firsthand the mistakes that set people back.
“One of my favorite questions to ask at the trade shows, whether it’s FreightWaves or TIA, is, ‘What’s the version of whatever you’re on? What year is it?’ And they’ll kind of look at their shoes. These are what I call the refugees. They’re looking, but they’re kind of stuck. And they’ll say 2016, 2014, 2015. Whereas, I’m doing four releases a year. I’m matching the cadence of Salesforce, which does winter, summer, spring, and fall releases. And we draft off of that because we’re shoveling in new feature functionality every quarter.”
The Importance of Building a Strong Team
After a decade serving as President and Chief Executive Officer at Revenova, Charles firmly believes the success of a company lies in having the right people on your team. “I would say the biggest enablers of projects going well are: Do you have tech people on your team? Do you have training managers on your team that will eventually take this over? Do you have executive sponsorship to really do this? To drive the change management? The projects that are successful all have those pieces. The projects that don’t have those pieces are not successful.”
Charles’s One-Platform Philosophy
He also emphasized the importance of having everything on one platform, comparing it to having email, texting, calls and apps on a single device: a cellphone. “You’ve got all the apps you want. You’re not buying a separate platform and a separate phone every time you want new capability. Why should you do that with business apps being the core of the vision. You should not have to buy another tech stack if you want to do LTL. Or if you’re doing specialized heavy haul, it should all live on one platform.”
Perspective on Remote Work
When asked about his views on remote work and maintaining his business in the city, Charles believes that location is irrelevant. “We have a lot of remote employees. That’s just the nature of things now. As we’ve grown, you really find great, talented people everywhere. And so, we take advantage of that. And frankly, I think you miss out on some great people if you insist on only being in-office. But you then have to work harder to manage that culturally and to make sure everyone’s aligned and working in the same direction.”
