October 2022 saw me bring to life Delivery, an advisory and execution offering focused solely on getting alongside road transport operators across New Zealand to assist them in accelerating the evolution, growth, resilience, or potentially exit of their operation.

Having joined the road transport industry in 2015 through the purchase of Warkworth-based Transcon, and more recently as a director of Halls Group, I’ve experienced first-hand the challenges that our industry presents us as our operators, and know how isolated it can feel when you’re under the pump keeping the wheels turning. There just never seems to be quite enough hours in the day to get to those important, but perhaps not quite so urgent tasks to ensure the stability, growth, development, and enduring success of the operation. You know those tasks; the ones that you know will actually shift the dial on the operation, but always seem a bit daunting to kick into gear.

Having looked at embarking on another ‘tour of duty’ and going through the process of acquiring another regional transport operation, I instead determined that an opportunity existed to build resilience and capability across a much greater number of transport operations. That’s taken the form of Delivery; the capability to collaborate and engage with existing operators needing greater bandwidth and perspective to evolve their operations from the current to the future. This will be in whatever form that may require, all the while having a service that shares the load and helps them with the heavy lifting.

At the heart of this philosophy is the principle of simplification and removal of waste. A heavy focus on automation, clarity around who the customers and clients we can do the best for in the most efficient manner, the development of brand and profile, all the while having a bloody good time doing it! Technology plays a key part in this, as does alignment of our team and ensuring you’ve got the right bums in the right seats (and freeing our best talent up to do what they do best, never more relevant than in our current labour market).

You don’t have to worry about me peddling some fly-by-night consulting gig, though. The approach behind Delivery is that of forming a wide-ranging snapshot of the current state of play via a range of proven and established tools, plotting a plan to take the operation forward, then working in the engine room going crazy on the execution to hit it out of the park. And I’m here to get hands-on and get to grips from the inside-out, whether that’s sitting behind a dispatch screen, riding shotgun in some of your fleet, or pulling on the end of a set of curtains or load-binders.

Ultimately this is about trying to play a small part in helping lighten the load of operators out there currently “living the dream” and helping deliver them better work stories. So, whether you’ve got 10 trucks or 100 trucks, transport pallets, pine trees, or pigs, and are based in Gisborne, Greymouth, or Geraldine, Delivery is here to help take your transport operation places.

On Thursday 2 February, Transporting New Zealand is hosting a half hour lunchtime Zoom session (12.30-1pm) where I will be online to discuss the offering and you can ask questions about how it might help your business. Please email info@transporting.nz to secure your seat. A calendar invite will be sent out to you once you have indicated your interest.

• Blake Noble